The Devil's Tramping Ground
by ImpalaLove
Summary: Set between 6x12 and 6x13. "The Devil's Tramping Ground is a mysterious, perfectly round and absolutely barren circle about forty feet in diameter in the pine woods of Chatham County. Not a tree, not a flower, no lowly weed, not even a single blade of grass will grow in the limits of the circle. Seed sowed there refuses to sprout. Vegetation transplanted there will wither and die."
1. Chapter 1

**It has been entirely too long since I've posted anything. As usual, there is a lot of random stuff sitting around waiting to be edited and fluffed up to look all nice and pretty, and I'm sure eventually I'll get to posting all that. This one's been sitting around waiting for edits for far too long, so I finally got around to it. Cheers to Lilybolt for the endless encouragement! It'll be a multi-chapter to be posted every Thursday (unless I forget, which is bound to happen eventually).**

 **Long absence aside, let's just get to the story, eh?**

 **Set in season 6 between episode 6x12** _ **Like a Virgin**_ **and 6x13** _ **Unforgiven**_ **.**

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The Devil's Tramping Ground

There are rules, you know. Things to keep in mind if you're going to survive this world. Especially once you actually know about the things that walk within it, those sharp shadows that morph to solids the moment the sun goes down. Some don't even wait that long.

They're just good at hiding in plain sight.

The Winchesters learned because they had to, and perhaps that makes them safer than most, but it's never seemed that way to Dean. Instead it seems like all that knowledge has somehow tethered them to some unique, magnetic force. Those things crawling along in the dark must all be made of metal, he's decided, for how fast and how often and how _furiously_ they come.

"Dean?"

"Yeah."

"You hear what I said?" Sam's speaking soft, the way he does when he's done something wrong. Even though he hasn't this time, not really. It wasn't him. Dean's told him that a hundred times. Hasn't quite stuck yet. Dean can tell by his little brother's voice and by the way he's sitting at the little table in their motel room in Bear Creek, North Carolina, running a hand absently along the worn pages of Dad's journal . But at least it's Sam. It's really Sam now.

Dean clears his throat, shifting his shoulders against the headboard of his bed and adjusting the laptop that sits on his legs. He's been staring at it for hours, though he's not sure how much research he's actually gotten done. And he knows for a fact he'd been spaced out for at least the last minute or so. Because he didn't hear a word Sam had apparently just uttered.

"Sorry, Sammy. What'd you say?"

Sam doesn't sigh in frustration the way he normally would. "I said, I think we need one more day of research. What if it's not a wendigo?"

"Signs are all there." Dean knows he sounds bored, which is good because that's a better way to come across than what's actually going on inside his head right now. He isn't even sure he knows exactly what that _is_ at the moment. All he knows is that Sam is back, soul (mostly) intact, and Dean's never been more grateful for anything in his entire life.

But.

There's this thing. This doubt...this _pit_ in his gut. That it can't all last for long. That sooner or later ( _sooner sooner sooner_ ), that wall inside his brother's head will crack apart and everything he's just gotten back will shatter along with it. This time for good. So he's not bored. He's scared. Sam does sigh this time, just a small exhale that's barely audible, which is good, because that means he's bought the whole boredom schtick.

"Dean. Let's do this right. Let's be sure. I mean, I know I was...gone for a while, but this is still the way we do things, right? We always make sure we know what we're up against. No surprises. That's how we stay alive."

Dean knows Sam's being logical. He also knows Sam is looking at him with those big, pleading eyes he's seen a million times before, the expression that was absent from the robot walking inside his brother's skin these past few months. He wants more than anything to look up and see that face, but he doesn't. Instead, he pushes a hand through his hair and drops his chin to his chest.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Sam is surprised. He hasn't forgotten how bull-headed his big brother can be most of the time. All of the time. "Just like that?"

Dean shrugs. "You think we need more time. Fine." Pushing the laptop aside, Dean swings his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for the cooler he knows is sitting at the foot of it. He snags a bottle of water from it and snaps the cap off, taking a long swig before continuing. Sam gives him a look like confusion at his choice in beverage, but it changes to one of annoyance when Dean keeps talking. "Someone else dies though, it's on us. Five disappearances in the woods in five days. Seems like a pretty obvious pattern to me."

Now Sam's sigh is more of a growl. "Oh come on, man. That's not…"

"Not what, Sam?" Dean interrupts, raising his eyes to meet Sam's. He was right about the look he was getting. "Not fair? Last I checked, monsters don't _do_ fair. They do damage. And this one's about to do more tonight unless we get to it first. Simple as that."

Ten minutes later, the sun is setting, the weapons bag is packed, and the Impala is roaring down the road.

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"You uh...you got a plan?" Dean can tell that's not the question Sam wanted to ask. The original was probably more along the lines of 'you okay?' or maybe 'you wanna tell me what you're thinking about right now?' But Sam's always been better at reining that kind of thing in, probably because he knows he"d never get a straight answer. Dean feels guilty about that sometimes, catches his lip in his teeth as he drives and makes Sammy revert back to the safer questions without even having to say a word. After all, there are rules, you know.

A list of things they don't talk about, things that slide along the edges of their heads and grip like talons against the tissue of their minds and never, never get spoken aloud. It's how they stay sane. How they wake up in the morning and do more than just blink.

They don't talk about the feel of a hellhound's teeth as they sink into skin.

They don't talk about the fiery throes of an endless and very literal Hell, remembered or not.

They don't talk about months spent alone in a stranger's room, seeking solace where there is none.

They don't talk about that vital, missing piece that goes along with the body.

Instead, they talk about the creatures they can actually see, the ones that bleed as well as they do. The ones that can be killed. Dean plays along because these are the rules and they've been playing this game for far too long for him to lob in a curveball now. So Sam asks if he's got a plan, and Dean answers the way he should.

"Find wendigo, kill wendigo, be back in time for the end of that Jackie Chan movie marathon." If Sam notices the way Dean's fingers wrap just a little too tightly around the steering wheel, he doesn't mention it. Dean knows he notices.

"It just seems weird," Sam pushes. "Usually with wendigos, the bodies are found. Ripped all to hell, but they get found. These people just...disappeared. No trace."

"It's been less than a week since this all really started up, Sam," Dean counters. "Most of the victims could still be alive if this thing wants to feed slow. And besides, most people don't know the things we know. They're not looking in the right places."

Sam wrinkles his nose and shrugs against the passenger seat. "I guess."

Even as he says it, Sam feels like by this point, they should know better than to simply _guess_.

* * *

 **See ya next week!**


	2. Chapter 2

**No preamble necessary...**

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"You're bringing a machete? What's that gonna do against a wendigo?" Dean asks, shoving a flamethrower into the weapons bag and watching as Sam straps the long knife to his belt. They've parked along the edge of the woods where the disappearances have been taking place. A light wind rolls out from the trees, an invisible yet ominous current. The sky is a reddish, almost coppery black, the tops of the trees whispering against its edges, their silhouettes pushing off from the moon and throwing shadows across Dean's face as he closes the Impala's trunk.

Sam rolls his eyes, reaching back to check for his gun. "Told you man, I'm not convinced that's all this is. And when this machete saves your ass, I expect an apology."

"Yeah well I expect a medal for dealing with the most stubborn little brother on the planet, but we don't always get what we deserve," Dean volleys.

Sam's answering smirk lacks the usual luster. He knows his brother hasn't deserved most of what he's gotten. Especially lately. Especially when it comes to what Sam himself has done. And Dean can tell him it wasn't really _him_ , that lacking a soul also means you lack the fabric of who you are or whatever, but like Sam said, it's still his pocket that houses the lighter that set the whole damn city ablaze. It's still his own hands that come up bloody.

"Let's just get this over with," Sam says. And they're moving.

It's early winter in North Carolina but there's no snow here, for which Sam is glad. Their usual layers are enough to keep out the slight chill in the air, and it also means that while some have fallen, there isn't an unseemly number of dead leaves littering the ground waiting to be crushed beneath their feet, so the hunters are able to slide somewhat stealthily through the undergrowth. Dean carries the weapon's bag slung over one shoulder, and Sam is armed with a compass and a few weapons of his own. They don't speak much, just canvassing for now as they make their way toward the coordinates of the latest victim's last known location. It had taken some finessing on Sam's part, but he'd eventually been able to get his hands on Aaron Rigby's phone number, the fifth disappearing victim in as many days. Miracle of miracles, Aaron's GPS had been turned on, so they'd been able to track the exact point he'd dropped off the map. As far as Sam can tell, there's nothing significant about the spot. Then again, they hadn't had much time to do any honest to God research, thanks to Dean's insistence that they already know what they're up against.

Sam feels like he might've had more to say about it if things were different. If he hadn't just gotten back from a more exclusive Hell tour than even his brother had been subjected to. And sure, there's a wall in his mind and maybe he doesn't _remember_ it, but he can _feel_ it. The weight of something dark and ugly nestled inside his mind, a snake waiting for the perfect time to uncoil and strike with merciless intent. Sam recognizes it, because in what seems like a lifetime ago, he had been that very snake.

So who is he to question his brother? Semi-retired or not, Dean's always had a sixth sense when it comes to the supernatural, and it's kept them alive so far. Well. In a manner of speaking.

The fact is, Sam trusts Dean more than he trusts himself right now.

Dean pulls out his flashlight as they stride deeper into the woods and Sam follows suit. He'd barely realized how dark it was getting, and he tries not to think too hard about the fact that RoboSam, as Dean so flinchingly refers to the version of him without a soul, would've never let something as meaningless as his thoughts distract from the hunt at hand. RoboSam's flashlight would've already been sweeping the forest floor ahead of them.

Sam wonders what that says about him, that he's comparing the different parts of himself like that, that he's finding something good about not having a soul. Above them, the light of the half moon fades to a dull glow.

When Sam's coordinates take them too far off the beaten path, Dean bends to retrieve the small knife from his boot, marking a small 'X' into the bark of the tree nearest him.

"Hansel and Gretel were idiots," he says by way of unneeded explanation. Sam smirks, and they continue on, Dean making his marks on the trees as they go.

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"Do you think we'll ever see another dragon again?" Dean asks after a pause, as if his Hansel and Gretel comment has opened up the need for conversation. His flashlight whips around so that it's beam hits Sam directly in the eye.

"Jesus, Dean," Sam snarls, hand coming up to rub at his overexposed pupils. "Watch it, would ya?"

"It'd be a good way to ensure our livelihood, you know?" Dean says, purposefully remaining oblivious to his brother's outburst. He flings the beam back around and continues deeper into the woods, talking over his shoulder. "Think of all the gold we'd get. Wouldn't have to use the fake cards anymore. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Sammy? Or have you gotten over that whole thing?"

Sam rolls his eyes despite the fact that Dean can't see it, his own flashlight dancing at his brother's feet on the path in front of him before once again scanning what lies on either side of them: more trees. More nothing.

"Pretty much over it," Sam replies, because it's true. "I figure we've both paid our dues at this point."

Sam sees his brother's head bob twice, decisively. "Good," he calls. "I'm glad you see it that way. Still. All that gold…"

"Now you're starting to sound like a pirate," Sam jokes, watching the way the light from his beam bounces off from a spider-web just to his left. It's perfectly constructed, no doubt touched only by the wind and the spider that had created it. Sam wishes more things could be so unmarred, so safely harbored.

He waits for his brother's sarcastic response. Something about how being Jack Sparrow is basically the coolest profession Dean can think of, aside from what they already do for a living. But it never comes. Instead, Dean is frozen just a few feet in front of him. Without a word, Dean drops the weapon bag deftly from his shoulder and onto the ground, unzipping it as he does so. By the time the bag hits the floor of the forest with a soft thud, Dean holds the flamethrower.

"Dean," Sam hisses, reaching for his gun. He brings it up to meet the invisible threat, flashlight hovering in his other hand, sweeping the expanse of forest over Dean's shoulder, the beam catching just enough against his face for Sam to see Dean's expression. It is one of wary concentration.

"Shh," Dean spits back, flamethrower balanced in his hand. He's got his lighter and his flashlight in the other. "You hear that?"

The pair stands in silence for a full two minutes, both frozen, both listening hard for the telltale signs of a wendigo. Or something else. Sam hears nothing. Dean's breath quickens.

"Dean, what?" Sam tries again. "What is it?"

"You don't hear that?" Dean still hasn't moved, though his finger twitches, opening the cap of his Zippo.

"Hear _what_ ," Sam whispers. No matter how hard he strains to listen, there is nothing.

"It's like...it's this...this voice only…" Dean pauses, finally turning to face Sam, his eyes blown just a little too wide. "...not human," he finishes.

"You got vampire hearing now or something? There's nothing, man. No one," Sam insists, too busy running a quick sweep of the area around them with his flashlight beam to see Dean's flinch at his mention of vampires. He comes up empty. Not a twig or a branch out of place. But still, Dean is rarely wrong about these things. And he seems a little freaked, which is hard to do these days. Unless things have changed since...well, _since_.

Dean straightens a bit, letting the flamethrower drop against his hip. "That was weird," he says, too loudly.

"Dean, shut up," Sam growls, panicked. Dean's one-eighty is throwing him. And now that's he's really listening, he really can't hear _anything_. Not the breeze moving through the leaves (though he can still feel it on his face), not a single bug moving along the forest floor or a whisper of wildlife rustling the still air.

It's way too quiet.

"You just said you heard something. Wanna give away our position to the damn thing?"

"Nah, it was farther off. It's gone," Dean says, shaking his head as if his brain has become muddled with a few of the same spider webs Sam had been examining just a few seconds earlier. Dean drops the flamethrower the rest of the way into the bag at his feet, zipping it in one quick motion and hauling it back over his shoulder. "We gotta go," he says, already moving again. He shoves past his stricken little brother, heading back the way they'd come.

"Are you...hey! Dean!" Sam shoots off after his brother's rapidly retreating form, quickening his pace until he can latch onto his brother's wrist and pull Dean back around to face him. "What the hell, man? What do you mean we gotta go? Last I checked we hadn't killed anything yet. That's usually when we know it's time to move on. Am I missing something?"

Dean pulls his arm back, eyes suddenly wild and angry. "Yeah, you _are_ missing something," he snarls, jaw rolling. "About six months worth of memories, for starters. Which means right now, I'm calling the shots. And I say we're going. So we're going."

Sam reels back from the sting of the words. Dean's expression softens instantly. He clears his throat.

"Sam, I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't...nothing meant by it, okay? I just. I can't explain it, but we need to leave. Now." A pause. "Please."

It's the 'please' that gets Sam moving, shoving ahead of Dean with a swift nod and leading the way back to the car parked a few miles away. Dean doesn't talk like that unless he means it, and as much as Sam hates to admit it, his brother is right. He _has_ been gone for a long time. Maybe he's rusty. Well. _This_ part of him, the part with a soul. The _real_ him, Sam tries to tell himself, but really, he knows that's not completely true.

"Do you still hear it?" Sam asks, more for a distraction from his own thoughts than anything else. He knows he should be worried, maybe a little on edge about the fact that there is apparently some non-human voice out here in the woods that only Dean can hear, but mostly he's just curious as to what it could be that has Dean so...like _this_.

"Keep moving," Dean answers, avoiding the question and answering it all the same. Sam turns to look at him in the waning moonlight, watching the way Dean's eyes dance along the trees on either side of them. He's still breathing just a little too fast.

"Dean?"

A growl this time. "Keep. Moving."

They make it.

It doesn't take them nearly as long to get back as it did to get to where they were, but Sam still feels like they've aged more than a day. He had begun to feel it too, whatever it was that had set Dean so on edge. The longer they had stayed there, the worse it had gotten. The trees, the moon, everything had seemed dimmer. Dirtier. The quiet wrapped around them like a vice, squeezing something tight and ugly in the hollow pit that had begun to form beneath Sam's ribcage. It felt like a mixture of fear, loss, and something akin to starvation. It didn't make sense, but that hadn't mattered. Whatever it was, real or imagined, it had felt real enough. Now, driving back along the dark road on their way to the motel, Sam is finally beginning to feel a bit more like himself again.

"Dude, what _was_ that?"

Dean doesn't have to ask what Sam's talking about. "I don't know."

"I've never felt anything like that," Sam says, shaking his head. "Have you? I mean, it must be something _big_ , to have an effect like that. And I wonder why you felt it so much earlier than I did. Do you think…?"

"I think you need to _stop_ thinking," Dean interrupts. His fingers tremble slightly on the steering wheel. "It's probably not anything we haven't seen before. Hunters are supposed to get gut feelings like that. It's why we aren't dead yet."

Sam shakes his head again, wondering at how his brother's words seem to echo his thoughts from earlier. But not now. He knows that wasn't just a gut feeling. Dean won't meet his eyes, gaze focused solely on the empty road in front of them, but Sam faces him anyway and doesn't look away. "You know that was different."

"Yeah," Dean says after a minute, still staring straight ahead. "Yeah."

* * *

 **Happy almost Friday! Leave some thoughts if you've got time and I'll 'see' you next week!**


	3. Chapter 3

He can't tell Sam what the voice in the woods said, so it's a good thing Sam doesn't think to ask.

Dean had been worried that he might, on the drive back to the motel, but it seemed like Sam was too caught up in his own thoughts to realize that maybe the not-so-human voice Dean had heard might've actually said something intelligible.

It had.

Back at the motel, the sheets of his mattress are too warm and the moon is too bright, though Dean knows it's not even halfway full. Sleep is unattainable, fraught with imageless nightmares caught between long bouts of wakefulness spent staring at the ceiling. He thinks Sam sleeps a little bit better, but he's not sure.

At least Sam _sleeps_ again. Period.

"Breakfast?" Sam asks in the morning, pushing strands of long hair off his face as he sits up and swings his legs over the side of his bed.

"Diner, or are you offering to pick something up?" Dean counters. He scrubs a hand down his face but stays vertical, staring up at the blank, cream-colored ceiling of their room and wondering how much sleep he'll have to lose before he no longer has the coordination to aim a gun. He wonders if that's the thing that will finally get him killed. He can see the headlines now: _The Famous Dean Winchester Taken Down Not by Lilith, Not by Lucifer, Not Even By His Soulless Little Brother, But by his Inability to Hold a Shotgun_. It's a working title. Maybe a little too long. He pictures it laid out on one of the back pages, right next to an advertisement for a medication that claims to cure insomnia. Genius marketing, really.

"I'll grab something if you promise to do some research while I'm gone, maybe figure out what we're dealing with here," Sam says. He rises from the bed and grabs a bundle of clothes, pausing just outside the bathroom door. "And don't you dare say it's a wendigo."

Dean frowns. Wendigos can mimic human voices. They know this, just as surely as Dean knows that whatever was out there in those woods last night _wasn't_ a wendigo. It just…wasn't.

"Can't rule it out yet," Dean answers anyway, amplifying his voice so that it reaches through the closed bathroom door. He hears Sam scoff from the other side. He knows it's ridiculous to keep hoping that's all this is, but he also knows that ruling it out means it's probably something worse (and it's definitely something worse, Dean can _feel_ that much, and he knows his brother can, too).

Dean rolls over to snag his phone from the bedside table, frowning when he sees a notification for a missed call and voicemail. By the time Sam emerges from the bathroom, fully dressed, Dean is sitting up against the headboard with a sour expression.

Sam only needs to look at him for a second. "What?"

Dean rolls his tongue over his gums, tosses his phone onto the mattress. "Another one disappeared. Melanie Simms."

"Crap."

"Yeah. Crap," Dean agrees. "Okay," he says after a moment. "Grab food, I'll research. Then we go?"

"I'll make it quick," Sam nods, snagging his wallet from the bedside table.

"Sam?" Dean says, and Sam stops, one foot out the door.

"Pancakes. Extra syrup."

"Sugar isn't a food group, Dean. And it's _not_ a freakin' wendigo."

The door shuts with a _click_.

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"It's the Devil," Dean says the moment Sam's stepped through the door. Sam flinches noticeably, and Dean immediately regrets his words.

"What?" Sam says, and it is almost a whisper, as if Lucifer can listen in on their conversations as he paces the walls of his Cage. Sam sets the bag of food, along with the Impala's keys on the table near the door and stares at Dean, who is sitting up against the headboard just as he had been when Sam left, only now the laptop rests on his legs.

"Sorry," Dean says, instantly clarifying. "That's the legend out here. Apparently those woods we were in last night are called the Devil's Tramping Ground."

"Okay," Sam says, calmer now. He reaches into the bag and pulls out a to-go carton, setting it down beside the bag before reaching back in for another. "You know what would've been great? Doing a little research so that we knew that beforehand."

"Sammy…" Dean starts, and it sounds like an apology. Maybe Dean means it to be.

"So what does that mean, exactly?" Sam cuts him off. "The Devil's Tramping Ground?"

Dean smacks his lips together, starts a different sentence. "I'm not sure. Technically it's not even the entirety of the woods. It's just this one part. There's a big clearing, this forty-foot circle where nothing grows- no trees, no vegetation, no weeds. Nothing." Dean eyes the containers of food eagerly. "So legend has it that this is where the Devil comes to think. He paces around the circle all night, planning out his terrible deeds or whatever, and then in the morning he goes and carries them out."

Sam gives Dean a look. "Are you serious?"

Dean shrugs, angling the computer screen towards his brother. "GhostChaser87 and ExorScissors1991 both seem pretty serious about it."

"Dean," Sam groans. There is still a twinge of fear in his voice, and Dean hates to hear it there.

"Sam, relax alright?" He says, sliding the laptop off his lap and coming to the table near the door. He opens the first container Sam had set down and smiles widely at the pancakes that practically overflow from it. He pulls his attention back to his brother, finding Sam's gaze. "We know where Lucifer is, okay? We _know_. And he's not getting out. So we just gotta figure out what's actually going on out there. There are all kinds of explanations for a barren spot in the middle of the woods, supernatural and not. Though in this case, we're probably looking at something in our line of work."

"What makes you say that?" Sam asks, and Dean knows he's fishing.

"You know what makes me say that," Dean replies evenly. He fills his left hand with as many packets of syrup as he can find and brings those and the box of pancakes back to his bed, setting them on the bedside table and stretching back out on the mattress. Sam lets it go for now, sitting down at the table and reaching for his own food.

"So...zombie?" He asks instead, fishing for something different this time.

"Like that case in Greenville about a million years ago?" Dean asks, shoveling a bite of over-syruped pancake into his mouth. "Could be. Dead guy or gal gone vengeful, kills off all the plants in a certain area. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Did it feel like that to you?" Sam says, taking a bite from his own meal. Some kind of veggie omelet, from what little Dean can see peeking over the edges of the container.

"Come on, Sam," Dean warns.

"Dean, we've gotta talk about this," Sam insists, ever the dog with a bone. Dean doesn't want to talk about the stupid woods, because that brings them one step closer to talking about the stupid voice and he just...can't. But Sam has other ideas. "I mean that was…I'd rather have the in-your-face, drooling monsters." Sam continues. "It felt like the longer I was in there, the more pieces I was losing of myself. I felt like I'd never be happy again or something, like all the life was just getting slowly sucked out of me. You _had_ to feel it, too."

"What is this, _Prisoner of Azkaban_?" comes Dean's retort.

"Pris…?" Sam gapes at his brother from across the room, a small smile curling his lips. "You read Harry Potter?"

"I didn't have to. You wouldn't shut up about 'em once you started reading," Dean shrugs. "Remember the longest trip in the world, Utah to Boston? I think you were twelve. Dad practically drove straight through, didn't want to lose the trail. I snagged the whole series form the school library before we took off and you go through the first four books during that car ride. Practically recited them all back to me."

"Huh," Sam says, taking a contemplative bite of his omelet, head tilted a little to the side. "I guess I do remember telling you a few snippets..."

Dean snorts around another bite of pancake. "You should've gotten paid to do live reenactments, I swear. I'm sure Dad would've been happy for the extra cash."

Sam wrinkles his nose and tosses a wayward onion in Dean's direction. It lands on the laptop, and Dean flicks it onto the floor with an eye roll.

"They're good books. Rowling's a genius." Sam says once he's done chewing. He pauses for a second. "Wait. You _stole_ _Harry Potter_?"

"Beside the point, man," Dean reminds him, closing his now empty container. He wipes his hands off on a paper napkin and stands. "We did not get Dementor-ed, okay? It's something else."

Sam finishes off his breakfast too, shoving his trash back into the bag it had come from. "We can put in a call to Bobby, see if he's dealt with anything like this," he says. "But in the meantime we should see what we can scrounge up. Who was the latest victim? Melanie? She have family around here? A boyfriend or something?"

"Parents are from out of state, but the message I got said they interviewed her girlfriend, ruled her out as a suspect," Dean replies. "She probably doesn't know anything."

"Sometimes they do, Dean. Won't know until we go." Sam reasons. "Come on."

Dean lets his head fall forward, eyes closing for a moment. Then he straightens back up, wiggling his fingers in Sam's direction. "I need twenty to wash all this syrup off."

Sam scowls, nose crinkling. "You get ten. I'll track down the address."

* * *

 **Hope everyone is having a beautiful Thursday!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Surprise! I realized I won't be around tomorrow so I'd rather post a day early rather than a day late. Hope you enjoy.**

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"There are rules, you know," Colleen is saying, short bangs and teary eyes. She's sitting on the loveseat in the living room of the small apartment she shared...shares (she's not necessarily dead yet, they don't know for sure) with her girlfriend Melanie. The Winchesters sit on the couch across from her, ties tied and badges tucked away in jacket pockets.

"There are just things you don't do around here," Colleen continues, "and going to the Devil's Ground tops the list. Melanie knew that. She _knew_ that. I just don't understand why she would...how she could…" Colleen pauses to blow a glob of snot into the tissue Sam hands her, and Dean tries not to smile because this is _so_ not the time but _Sam handed her a tissue. Because Sam thinks of those things again. He_ cares _again. Is_ Sam _again._ Dean's surprised that he's still relishing that fact.

Actually.

No. He's not surprised at all.

"I'm sorry Colleen. We know this must be hard," Sam says, and he _means_ it. "But could there have been any specific reason Melanie might've had for going out there that night? Something she might have told you before she left that would explain why?"

Colleen shakes her head, dabbing at the blob of mascara that has smudged at the corner of one puffy eye. But then she stops and sniffles once. Dean watches as she pauses in her grief, desperately searching her memories before she answers.

She'll be okay, Dean thinks. Either way this goes, she'll make it. Years doing this, and he wants to find comfort in seeing the small indications of Colleen's strength, but mostly he's just angry. Angry that yet another monster has taken a loved one away from someone, and they couldn't stop it. They were _right_ _there_ last night, but they couldn't do a damn thing about it. And Dean's the one who made them leave. He's still not quite sure what came over him out there, just that he couldn't be there any longer. Like Sam said, it had felt like losing pieces of himself. Dean thinks they've lost enough already.

And now, so has Colleen.

"No," Colleen finally replies, sniffling one more time. She's stopped actively crying now, but her bottom lip still quivers. "Like I said, there are rules. You don't just...my neighbor Bethany? She stayed there one night on a dare almost a year ago." Colleen shivers.

"What happened?" Dean asks when her pause is just a little too long this time. There is something hidden in Colleen's eyes, something haunted. It's the look of someone who has seen the things they have, who already knows about what sits in the shadows, even if she's not aware of exactly what it is she saw. Sam shoots a quick glance over at his brother, so Dean knows Sam sees it too.

Colleen clears her throat. "The dare was that Bethany had to camp the night. So she did. She woke up the next morning and her tent had moved about half a mile from where she'd pitched it. And then she just...things started happening to her. She was having all these freaky dreams, kept telling everyone at school that Armageddon was coming. That the Devil walked the Earth. Total crazy talk, you know?"

Sam shoots another glance at Dean, this one far more weighted than the one before. Dean ignores the pointed look; instead trying for a reassuring smile directed at Colleen, though he knows it comes off as nothing more than a weak upward twitch of his lips. But it seems to be enough for Colleen, because she continues talking.

"Then we had all that weird weather hit- all those crazy lightning storms. And she totally flipped. Just _lost_ it. Stopped going to class, stopped eating, stopped sleeping. And this one night, in the middle of one of those really bad storms, I look outside and there she was." Colleen shakes her head in bewilderment, lost in the memory. "Just standing there in the rain in nothing but a t-shirt and shorts, staring up at the sky and letting the drops hit her. Not moving. Hell, not even blinking. Scariest thing I ever saw in my life, and I can't even explain why."

Dean licks his lips, leaning back against the couch a little. There's about a million questions to ask after a story like that, but Dean knows there's only one that will really help them now.

"Colleen," he says. "Where is Bethany now?"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo0000000000000000OOOOOO000000000oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Kinda looks like the one back in Oklahoma," Dean mutters under his breath. They walk swiftly through the halls of the Chatham County Mental Hospital in the wake of a burly man named Doctor Thomson (without the "P," he'd told them upon their introductions, at which Dean had barely held back a snicker. His arm still twinges from where Sam punched him the moment the doctor's back was turned).

"Just a little farther down," Thomson tosses the words over his shoulder at them, definitive muscles rippling along the fabric of his long, white coat.

"Pretty sure all mental institutions look similar, Dean," Sam whispers back. "Limited stimulation and all."

"Here we are," Doctor Thomson says, pausing in front of Room 428 and missing the flick Dean expertly delivers to the back of his little brother's head. Sam manages to keep his answering growl too low for the large man to hear.

"Just took her meds a little while ago so she should be in a good place to talk to you folks," Thomson says, "She's a bit temperamental sometimes. Spooked her family away from visiting."

"What do you mean?" Sam asks.

"Never got the full story, just want you guys to know what you're walking into. Bethany's a sweet kid most of the time, but there's a reason she's here. That's all I'm saying," Thomson barely elaborates. "You need anything, you holler. I'm right outside the door, okay?"

"Thanks," says Dean. There's a hint of resentment in his tone, but Thomson wouldn't know enough to pick up on it.

Thomson slides the key in, turns the lock, and gestures the boys into a small room decorated similarly to the rest of the hospital- that is, not decorated at all. The only furnishings are the bed with plain white sheets and a small dresser that holds nothing but a lamp without a light bulb and a copy of the Bible (and Dean wonders what the hell the point of that lamp is). The Bible's pages are worn thin, either well loved or desperately sought. It lies open on the table, a few phrases underlined in what looks to be black crayon. Dr. Thomson closes the door softly behind them. The moment he's gone, a voice swells out from the dimness.

"I think I know."

Dean feels Sam startle a little beside him at the unfamiliar, high-pitched voice. Letting his eyes drift from the open Bible, he follows the voice to its origin on the other side of the room. Bethany Michaels sits with her back up against the far wall of the small space, arms wrapped around her knees and her head tilted back so she's staring at the ceiling. A small beam of sunlight peeks in through the barred windows, making her already white-blonde hair seem to glow almost silver. It runs down past her shoulders, twisted and dead at the ends.

"Think you know what?" Sam asks. If Dean didn't know what real angels were, he'd say Bethany looked like one, sitting there inside her own personal pool of light with her long, white hair. She's only spoken four words so far, but they were laced with something just this side of danger, an undercurrent like wood that hisses and smokes before catching fire.

"Why you're here," Bethany says, though she has yet to look at either of them. Her eyes stay fixed on the ceiling. "I don't know if I can give you what you want. I don't have any answers. Only questions."

"Maybe you could try anyway," Dean says, taking a hesitant step in Bethany's direction. She tilts her head to acknowledge the shift, but doesn't say anything else. Her eyes flutter closed.

"Bethany," Sam tries this time after a too-long, too-quiet pause. "Can you tell us what happened to you at the Devil's Tramping Ground? If you just answer a few questions, you could help save a lot of people."

There is another long, tense moment where no one speaks. Sam is about to try again when Bethany finally lets out a small sigh.

"I felt him," she says, eyes still closed. Sam looks like he's about to ask who, but he doesn't have to. "I felt the Devil that night. Out there in the woods."

Suddenly, Bethany's eyes flash open, her dark gaze latching onto Sam's.

"And I feel him now. Inside of _you_."

Sam takes a startled step back and lets out a strangled _huff_ , as if a knife has just been plunged into his chest. Beside him, Dean stiffens.

"What…" Sam tries to reply, but Bethany's soft voice has hardened around the edges, and she talks over him.

"Do you know the story of the Boy Who Ate the Sky?" she asks, still staring at Sam. She doesn't wait for a response, twirling a finger around a lock of dead, white hair as she smiles at him. It is not a nice smile. "He swallowed it in one big gulp. Just opened his little mouth and sucked up every cloud, every star, every silver-tipped moon until the rest of the world, the rest of the solar system followed right after. And then he found another galaxy to swallow. And he didn't stop until it was all gone. And even after all of that...after _all that_ , he was still hungry. That is what you are, Sam Winchester. You are the boy who will swallow the sky."

Sam shakes his head furiously, and takes another step back toward the door, pupils huge. "How do you…? Who...?"

Dean is frozen, utterly silent. He can only stare at the young girl in the corner of the room until her large eyes finally land on him for the first time since the brothers had arrived in her room.

"And you," she says, shaking her head softly, sadly. Her long, blonde lashes almost touch her cheeks when she blinks. "How does it feel to stand beside a thing like him? To know what he is, what he will still become, and to just...let it happen. And for what, Dean Winchester? Because you love him? Because he is your brother, your charge, your purpose? You are the worst of the two. You are the one who could've stopped it, but wouldn't. You are the one who doomed us all."

Dean's mouth moves, but he can't seem to find any words. He narrows his eyes at the stranger who somehow knows their names (who knows so much more than she should), head tilted to the side like he's trying to slide the last few pieces of a puzzle together. Only problem is, he doesn't know what the picture on the front of the box is supposed to look like and he's missing about half the pieces. Meanwhile, Sam is still edging closer to the door, refusing to turn his back on Bethany. He reaches slowly behind him until his hand catches on the doorknob.

"Dean. Let's go," he urges. But Dean is still staring dumbly, unmoving, when Bethany begins to chant. The words roll over her tongue like a haunted lullaby.

" _Out in the woods in the grass in the trees_

 _He waits for you in the soundless breeze…"_

"You don't know anything about us," Dean growls at her, finally seeming to recover himself, if only slightly. He shifts toward her, but Sam lunges and manages to catch his arm before he can take a full step in her direction. Sam pulls his brother back, hard.

"Dean! We have to go. Now," Sam pleads, fingers wrapped around Dean's arm in the same place he'd playfully punched him not five minutes ago. He pulls him a little closer to the door, and finally Dean responds how he should, catching Sam's eye and giving him a swift nod that reads, _Okay. Good idea._

Bethany's chant continues.

" _Up in the hills on the way to your end_

 _You watch him comin' from round the bend"_

Still sitting on the floor, she smiles and waves an eerie goodbye, five long fingers almost seeming to reach for them as Sam flings the door open, pulling Dean with him and closing it swiftly behind them. A little ways down the hall, Dr. Thomson gets up from the chair he'd been sitting in, begins walking back to them. Before he reaches the brothers, the final two lines of Bethany's song drift out from behind the closed door:

" _See how not the branches but the roots begin to sway?_

 _Yes, that's when you know it is the Devil's Day."_

* * *

 **Unless something crazy happens, I should be sticking to posting on Thursdays from here on out. Hope everyone has a lovely Hump Day.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Posting a little late and this chapter's a little on the shorter side but hey, at least it's almost Friday =).**

* * *

"This is…"

"I know."

"No, I mean this is really…"

"I _know_ , Sam," Dean growls, lowering his head into his hands. This time he's the one sitting at the motel room table, whereas Sam has taken to nervously pacing the length of the room. "This is messed up."

Sam pauses from his attempt to bore a hole into the already worn carpet, meeting Dean's eyes. "But it can't really be…"

"It's not."

Sam rolls his eyes in frustration. "Would you stop cutting me off before I've even finished a sentence?"

"I already know what you're gonna say," Dean counters. He knows he's a little shaken, just like he knows that'll do nothing to help Sam's own level of stability at the moment. "And it's not Lucifer, Sam. It's not."

"How do you know?"

"Because it _can't_ be," Dean yells, throwing his hands in the air. He takes a breath, calms himself. He wants to be reassuring, but he knows he's failing miserably. There is an air of dread forming inside the walls of the motel room, a poignant tang that colors the air and sticks to them like all those monsters do with that weird, magnetic pull of theirs. Dean does his best to wave away the imaginary intrusion with a flick of his hand. "Because the whole reason you…." he chokes over the unspoken words; Sam's time in Hell still too fresh of a wound to untangle here and now. "...The whole reason was to make sure that he could never get out. That we would be rid of him forever. And nothing...it's impossible, okay? Just trust me. It's impossible."

"I got out." Sam is still treading an unpatterened pattern across the short length of the room.

"Yeah, you did," Dean says, tone colored in relief. He doesn't realize Sam didn't mean it as a reminder, but as an explanation.

"So who's to say he couldn't've ridden out too somehow?" Sam pushes, waiting for Dean to reach his trail of reasoning. Dean's smart, and he could've gotten there before Sam if he'd wanted to. But he doesn't want to. There is a pinprick of doubt, Dean can feel it nestling at the base of his neck, but he shakes he head hard and revolts against the thought that the nightmare isn't over, that maybe they've set it free all over again...

"He didn't."

"But maybe…"

"No." There Dean goes, interrupting Sam's unfinished thoughts again, but he doesn't care how annoyed Sam gets right now. He just cares that he's right. And he has to be. He _has_ to be right about this.

"Dean," Sam sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's finally stopped pacing now, instead leaning up against the wall farthest from the door, ankles crossed. Dean has the errant thought that he kind of looks like Dad, standing there like that. He remembers coming home from one of his first high school parties to find John Winchester similarly situated, leaning, deceptively casual, against the wall of their latest motel room with his boots still laced and ankles crossed when Dean had attempted a stealthy entrance in the dead of night. Dean remembers thinking that he'd never find anything more terrifying than the sight of his father like that, awaiting his son's return with a punishment already planned and a stare that could melt down a bullet.

That thought seems pretty ridiculous now.

"Maybe I should've stayed," Sam is saying. "I mean maybe the reason he's back up top is because…."

Dean's chest tightens. "What?" His words come stifled and crumbling. "What did you say?"

Sam gives his brother a pleading look. _See this from my side, please,_ the expression says. _Connect the pieces I'm seeing here._

"Look, if this is really Lucifer, if he's really back, it's because I didn't stay in Hell," Sam says, his voice soft. "Plain and simple. So all I'm saying is if I had stayed, we wouldn't be dealing with…"

Dean stands up as though his bones are breaking inside his skin, and Sam stops talking to look at him. Dean's shaking his head so fast and so minutely that it almost seems as though all of him is trembling. The constant litany of _no no no no no_ couldn't be more clear if Dean were screaming the words, but he swallows them. Reaches for the door handle, lets his fingers fall away before they even brush against it. Looks to the corner of the room, flicks his eyes to the TV, to the duvet, to Sam.

It's a reaction to words alone, and Sam should perhaps be shocked by what he's provoked in Dean. But Sam knows Hell and he knows life without his brother, and they are the same.

"Dean?" Sam tries.

"I need a drink," Dean says. He rubs a hand along the back of his neck.

"Dean, come on man. I'm not saying I'm not glad I'm out, okay? I'm glad. More than glad. Indescribably grateful, and lucky and thrilled, obviously. I'm just making a point."

"It's not a point that belongs in any kind of argument."

"This isn't an argument, Dean. We're just spitballing here. Just trying to figure out what's going on in those woods. I know you felt it out there. This isn't your normal, everyday monster. It's something worse, so maybe that means exactly what everyone around here seems to think it means."

Dean breathes out through his nose. "It doesn't matter."

"What?"

"It doesn't _matter_ , Sam." Dean repeats. "I don't care if it _is_ Lucifer. We got you out, so it doesn't matter. And anyway, it's not him. Do you know how fast Cas would be on our asses if it was? He could sense something like that. He would know, and he would tell us."

"Okay. Okay, you're right," Sam concedes. "But we should call him, just in case. Just to make sure."

"Yeah, fine. Call him if you want. Like I said, I need a drink." Dean grabs his coat from where it lays on the bed, flinging it around his shoulders in one quick motion.

"Seriously? Right now?" Sam asks.

Dean grabs the car keys. "Right now."

"Guess I'll let you know what Cas says," Sam sighs, knowing it's too much effort to try to stop Dean from making his temporary escape. After all, Sam knows that's all it is: temporary.

Dean always comes back.

"Guess you will," Dean shrugs, throwing open the door.

"Dean…." Sam tries one more time.

"It'll just be a drink," Dean says, voice softening. "I just need...it's just one drink and I'll be back. I promise, okay Sam?"

"Okay," Sam replies.

"Call me if Cas says...if it's an emergency," are Dean's last words as he closes the door behind him.

Sam nods to the empty room.

"Yeah."

* * *

 **Thank you all so much for continuing to follow along- your feedback really means a lot! See you next week!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Traveling tomorrow so I'm posting a day early again. Thanks for reading!**

* * *

Dean lied.

It won't just be one drink.

Actually, it won't be any drinks, because he's not going to a bar.

Visiting hours ended at five o'clock, but that rule doesn't apply to the guy with an official-looking-Kinkos-instated badge and a few pointed words at the night shift nurse. She directs him briskly down the hall to room 428, pausing outside the door to shoot Dean one last look of uncertainty.

"We're really not supposed to let anyone in here past five. Her medication wears off after about nine and after that she's…"

"Ma'am," Dean interrupts. "The FBI doesn't give a damn about medicinal schedules. I just need to see her."

"Yes sir." The nurse, whose nametag reads _Cecelia,_ raps three times on the door. "Bethany, honey, you have a visitor. He's coming in, okay?"

A muffled affirmation is heard through the door, and Cecelia slips the key into the lock and opens it, allowing Dean to walk through. The nurse hesitates.

"Just us please, Cecelia. Won't be more than a few minutes," Dean says, shooting her a lopsided smile. If he's being honest with himself, he's a little too nervous at the moment to give her the full grin. He's not quite sure what Bethany is, but he's got a silver knife and some holy water tucked into his pocket that might give him a better idea. Unease builds inside the lining of his stomach as Cecelia slides the door shut with a click, leaving him along with her. Bethany is sitting up in bed, back to the wall. She's staring at him.

"You're back," she smiles.

Dean takes a hesitant step forward. "You don't seem surprised."

Bethany nods. "I had an inkling."

"You gonna give me something useful this time around?" Dean folds his arms across his chest, trying to assert some kind of authority. He knows as well as she does that he has none here. That she'd thrown him completely off guard with their previous visit.

"I gave you something useful the last time too, you just didn't want to hear it," Bethany replies with that same sad look from before, as if she's seen the darkened pits of doubt inside Dean's head and is intent on dragging them into the light.

And yeah, Dean used to wonder about the exact thing Bethany had accused him of just a few short hours ago.

Used to sit up nights thinking about the last words his father had spoken to him and contemplate how the hell he could face that kind of reality. One in which he had to either save Sam, or kill him. To do neither meant risking the world. But even then, Dean knew that if it came down to the rest of the world or Sam, his decision had already been made.

That used to scare the crap out of him.

Things are different now. The decision will always be the same, the choice will always be Sam, but Dean's not afraid of that fact anymore. It's just that: a fact.

"Tell me what happened to you the night you went to the Devil's Tramping Ground," Dean says, trying to get his mind and the conversation back on track.

Bethany seems to shrink in on herself, and it's the first time Dean's seen anything resembling fear radiating off of her. He thinks about what Cecilia had said about Bethany's medication wearing off. "I can't tell you that," she whispers.

Dean chews on his bottom lip for a second and weighs his options, choosing the best way to continue. He's pretty sure that hounding Bethany isn't going to get him any of the answers he needs right now. Would be great if he knew what the hell kind of questions to ask. He walks slowly towards the bed. _Okay if I sit?_ His expression says.

Bethany gives a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Dean takes it as invitation enough, lowering himself onto the edge of the thin mattress. He feels the comforting metal of his gun against his back. The holy water sloshes along the edges of the flask inside his coat.

"Fine," he says once he's settled, working to soften his voice. "Then tell me how you know so much about me and Sam. Who are you? _What_ are you?"

"Nothing," Bethany insists. She's playing with the ends of her hair again, intent on not making eye contact. "I'm nothing."

"Look, I need you to give me something here, okay?" Dean pushes. "Anything."

Dean can actually see Bethany scanning her own brain for something to say. He watches the way her eyes flicker back and forth, sifting through errant thoughts until she hones in on something concrete. Dean imagines it is the same way a squirrel searches for the acorns it's buried after a long winter. Suddenly, Bethany's eyes light up, and she's looking right at Dean. "Would you like to hear the rules?" she asks. She seems so different from the girl they'd met earlier that Dean can't help but wonder exactly what kind of medications they have her on. She seems better off without them- more vibrant and human.

"What rules?"

"The rules that keep you alive," she says, as if it should be obvious.

Dean grabs onto it, because it's all she's giving him. "Tell me."

"You'll need a pen," she says pointedly.

"Seriously?" Dean asks before he can stop himself. Bethany just stares at him, waiting. He shakes his head and gives in a moment later, glad he's wearing the same jacket from earlier in the day when he'd been playing FBI. He digs through his pockets until he finds a pen and a pad of paper, fingers sliding against the silver knife. It's not time yet to test that theory.

"You must listen carefully," Bethany says once he has the pen poised over the paper. She pauses again, as if waiting for some kind of affirmation. Dean nods.

Bethany smiles and begins.

"If you are to stay sane, if you are to keep your soul and your self, there are rules you must follow for a walk in the woods," she says, voice slithering from her throat like a snake shedding skin. It sounds like a recitation from a long-forgotten screenplay, an unrecorded monologue. And suddenly, Dean knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is important.

"One," she whispers, sticking a bony finger in the air, "say your name aloud before you enter the woods. Let it rattle around inside your head, and do well to remember it, lest the forest try to make you forget."

After another pause, Bethany narrows her eyes. "You're not writing it down. You have to write it all down," she scolds. Dean wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of this, but for some reason it doesn't seem all that ridiculous.

"Sorry," he says instead, and he writes.

"Two," Bethany says, a second finger joining the first in the air. "Don't follow the voices. They will lead you only into sorrow."

She follows Dean's pen as it moves across the page, waiting. Dean watches her out of the corner of his eye, remembering a girl he'd spoken to once in New York on the morning after her entire family had been murdered by a monster. The girl had been out with friends all night, had returned the next day to find a bloodstained hallway, a life flipped inside out. He can still picture her foggy, red-rimmed stare, the blood on her bottom lip from biting down too hard. It was the look of someone coming down from one hell of a high, only to find that a hurricane had blown through town while she'd slept. Bethany has that same look about her now, as though she is only now returning to herself after a long absence. As if her soul has long been locked away in a cage.

Come to think of it, Dean's been seeing that look far too often lately.

Bethany fidgets beneath the thin sheets of the bed, eyes flickering everywhere and never quite landing. A thin smile plays on her lips, but it is accompanied by the same expression that Colleen had worn earlier, the look of someone who has seen the things Sam and Dean spend their lives saving people from. She's terrified, Dean realizes. Absolutely, bone-chillingly, terrified.

"Three," she says, sticking up a third, trembling finger.

"Bethany?" Dean asks, finally seeing the rest of the picture on the front of that puzzle box. Finally seeing the girl behind the impossible words she'd spoken earlier. "Were you possessed? Is that how you know us? How you know everything?"

"Three," Bethany insists, voice climbing to the edge of desperation as she jerks the third finger she still holds in the air. Dean swallows and nods, letting it go for now. He poises his pen above the paper again. Bethany's shrill recitation continues.

"A brush against bark will do no harm, but dig not your fingers nor your blade into the soft flesh of the trees that surround you. They do not take kindly to being marred."

Dean thinks of the way he had marked their path the other night, digging his knife into the trees so that they could find their way back. He rolls his shoulders back.

"Okay," he nods, clearing his throat. "Four?"

"Four," Bethany concedes. "Count your fingers ten, and then count them again. Remember what is dream and what is reality."

Another pause, nothing but the scratching of Dean's pen to fill the silence. He has questions, of course, but he recognizes the recitation for what it is, and he knows this is all he's getting from her right now. He keeps his mouth shut.

"And the final rule," she says, turning away from Dean to stare out the window of her tiny room. Her eyes darken a bit, as if one of those floating memories of hers has finally stuck to the walls of her brain long enough to be properly indulged. "You must remember the way home."

Dean copies the words obediently, sliding both pen and paper back into his pocket once he's done.

"Thank you, Bethany," he says, trying to catch her eye. She turns to meet his gaze, those haunting eyes of hers locking with his.

"I'm sorry," she says, said so quietly that Dean almost doesn't hear it. He sinks a little deeper into the mattress and waits.

"There is darkness in your brother," Bethany whispers after a moment, "but I am not one to condemn those who have had evil forced so far down their throats it makes them incapable of even screaming."

Dean doesn't answer until Bethany's wandering eyes find him again. "Bethany, how long?" he asks. "How long were you possessed?"

"Eleven months and nine days," she states bluntly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Felt like longer."

Dean lets out a horrified, choked breath. He swallows back the bile that has climbed its way up his throat.

"I'm sorry. I'm...we try," he utters, knowing there's nothing he can really say. "That's what we're doing here, Bethany. We try to help people like you. And I wish…." Dean sighs, rubbing a hand along his jaw. "I wish we could've saved you from that. From knowing that."

"Perhaps that is our burden," the young girl shrugs, those huge eyes blinking slowly at him. She sees more than he wants her to, but at least now Dean understand why that is. Her words come layered in sadness, but Dean hears the acceptance there too; some kind of shattered strength pushing up from the depths of a broken girl.

"We see the evil in this world so that we might do something about destroying it," she says. "And I _did_ see the Devil out in those woods that night, that was not a lie. But you see all kinds of things out there in the dark. You see all kinds of things, and you don't know what's real. And when it's over, you don't remember how to pick up the pieces, you know?"

All Dean can do is nod. He bites back the apologies and sympathy he knows won't help. These are the moments where Dean wishes for a different life, wishes his mother alive with eyes squeezed shut the same way he did when he was four years old, arms wrapped around a slumbering baby Sam. Of course, he has accepted her loss the best way he can, but looking at Bethany now, seeing all the ways he can't help, Dean wonders what his own losses are for if he can't even save people like her from their own.

"We're gonna kill it." he says, standing up from the edge of her bed. He knows there will be no justice in the defeat for Bethany, but it's all he has to offer. "Whatever it is out there, I won't let it get to anyone else. I promise."

Bethany smiles, a tormented and lonely expression. As if at twenty years old, her time has already come and gone. Dean turns away from that face, from that reality. He thinks about subjecting her to the holy water treatment, the slice of a silver knife, just to make sure. He heads for the exit.

"Remember the rules, Dean Winchester," Bethany calls after him. "Remember the way home."

Dean pauses beside the door, turning back to look at her one more time.

"I will."

* * *

 **See you next Thursday!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Happy Thursday, folks!**

* * *

Castiel comes a long while after Sam tries calling for him. Sam's just sitting in the motel room, staring at the static on the TV when he finally comes. He would've thought he'd be used to the angel's abrupt arrival by this point, but Sam still flinches at the now familiar sound of fluttering wings. Sam thinks about that sometimes, about how it's become almost commonplace to call the name of an angel who will almost immediately appear before them like some grand and holy harbinger. Harbinger of what, Sam has no idea. It depends on the day.

"Sam," Cas says by way of greeting. He looks the same as he always does: dirty trench coat and sour lemon expression, standing stoically in the middle of the motel room. "What is it? What do you need?"

It is then that Sam begins to feel stupid. Because Cas is fighting a war. They know this, even if they can't see it. Sam _does_ know war, and he can see the strain of it in the way the angel holds himself, as if some giant weight has settled across his shoulders, a burden felt even by a being as almighty as Castiel. And if Lucifer were really here, if he was really walking the earth, Cas would know, just like Dean had said. He would've already come.

But still.

Cas has been different lately. Colder. Distracted. Whatever it is. So maybe he wouldn't have come to them. Maybe he wouldn't have seen fit to warn them, to tell them...

 _What if?_

"Hey Cas," Sam nods, remaining seated on the edge of his bed. He's still not exactly sure how to properly greet an Angel of the Lord. Especially now that he's not ever sure he wants to ask the question that's been swimming around in his head ever since they'd set foot in those woods.

"I just...I'm sorry I called. I know you've got stuff going on right now and I should've...we just thought...well actually _I_ thought that this case we're working might've been something…" he pauses, collecting himself with a swift shake of his head. "But I was wrong. Because you would know if Lucifer...if he got out, right? You'd feel that?"

Castiel's eyes narrow and he tilts his head in that infuriating way he has- simultaneously all-knowing and oblivious.

"Sam, what is this about? You think the Devil is here?" Castiel asks, voice low and gravelly the way it always is. But if Sam could detect a hint of exhaustion from a celestial being, he thinks this is how it would sound.

"I did. But I don't anymore. Because it's impossible," Sam reasons, mostly to himself. "You would've sensed it right away. Right?"

"Yes," Castiel answers, and Sam feels himself sag in relief. "Generally, an event as monumental as Lucifer's escape would be felt amongst the angels. Of course, Death rescued your soul from Lucifer's Cage, and we certainly felt the ramifications of that."

Sam's momentary relief flees as quickly as it had come, leaving his muscles wound tighter than before. "So what does that mean? That he could've...ridden me out of there? That he could be walking free and you wouldn't know it, because the two events happened simultaneously?"

"Sam, I sincerely doubt that is true."

"But it's still a possibility, right? I mean...right?" Sam stands from the edge of the bed, taking a step in Castiel's direction. "I could've...bringing my soul back could've been the opening Lucifer needed. He could be _here_."

"You're angry," Castiel states.

"I'm...I'm….," Sam pauses, only now realizing that it's true. He turns away from the angel and lets out a frustrated breath. Closes his eyes. "The whole point of me jumping into the Cage was to make sure this would never happen. To make sure the Devil would be locked away forever. And now it's possible he's back, all because…"

"Dean couldn't live with you gone," the angel says.

"Well yeah, but that's not…" Sam shakes his head and turns back around to face Cas and reoccupy his place on the bed. His body feels heavy as he sinks into the mattress, as if burdened with the same kind of invisible weight that currently presses at Castiel's shoulders. "I'm not saying that. I'm not _blaming_ Dean. I'm just. God, we had an agreement, you know? He was supposed to go live happily ever after. He was supposed to settle down and have a family and go to baseball games on the weekends and be a _person_. So to sacrifice all of that just to bring me back, all the while risking the very real possibility of breaking Lucifer out too? It's just..."

Sam throws his hands in the air, leaves the sentence unfinished.

"Worth it for him," Castiel finishes for him, tone matter of fact. "It was worth it to your brother to save you, no matter the consequences. It has always been that way for you Winchesters. This shouldn't come as a surprise to you, Sam. You are needed here. Dean needs you."

Sam reels back a little. He isn't used to being spoken to so bluntly, especially about how he and Dean feel about each other. They don't talk about it. It's just something that _is_. The grass is green. The sky is blue. There is nothing more important to Dean than Sam. And vice versa, though Sam suspects his lovable idiot of a brother forgets that sometimes.

"Yeah, I know," Sam says. "But sometimes I wish he didn't."

"Yes," Castiel allows. "Perhaps that would be easier for you both, at times. But in my limited time on earth, I have seen that humans are rarely successful on their own."

"You should write for a greeting card company."

Sam startles at the sound of Dean's voice. He'd been so lost in thought he hadn't even heard the door open. But there stands his brother, jaw locked with that _don't mess with me_ determination that usually either means he's had a bad day and wants to shoot something, or that he's about to hustle some unknowing fool out of some pool money.

"Dean…" Sam says, standing up from the bed again and wondering how much of the conversation his brother could've overheard from outside the thin motel room door.

"Hi Cas," Dean ignores his brother and nods to the angel, taking off his coat and tossing it onto the bed nearest the door. "Good to see you, buddy. How are things upstairs? Still fighting the good fight?"

Castiel's jaw clenches almost imperceptibly. "I don't wish to discuss it, if it's all the same to you. But yes, we are still fighting."

"Okay," Dean nods, letting it go easily. "So what do you think about Sammy's latest theory?" he asks, closing the door behind him. "Any concrete evidence?"

"You mean about Lucifer?" Cas asks. _Distracted_ , Sam thinks. Castiel is distracted because he's fighting a damn war and he doesn't have time for this. For any of this.

"Yeah, man. With Lucifer," Dean affirms with an uneasy smile, sensing Cas's demeanor.

Castiel sighs, eyes locked on the ceiling. "As I told your brother, there is an infinitesimal chance that Lucifer could've broken free without us knowing it."

Dean nods, slaps a hand on Sam's back. "See Sam? What'd I tell ya? Not Satan."

"A small chance is still a chance, Dean," Sam replies, watching as Dean makes his way slowly over to his own bed. He's wondering why Dean is back so early, how he's walking straight. With the way Dean was talking earlier, Sam had expected a drunken mess of a brother to show up just around sunrise. He's not happy with that assessment, of thinking that way about his brother, but Dean's habits have proven themselves time and time again. So now Sam is distracted too, because he's wondering why that isn't the case this time. He's usually found Dean to be so...predictable.

Sam yearns for the millionth time to know all that he's missed, pushes a tentative, invisible finger up against the wall inside his head and gives it a little nudge. Pulls back before he cracks something that can't be fixed.

"True, but until we know more, I'm ruling it out," Dean says. He directs his attention back to the angel in the middle of the room. "Cas, thanks for coming down buddy. We know it's not easy up there."

"Yes," Cas nods. "I must be getting back."

"Sure Cas," Sam nods, still somewhat ashamed at having called the angel. "We underst…"

But before he can finish the thought, Castiel is gone in a mostly silent _whoosh_ of wings.

"Always so sentimental," Dean chuckles, shaking his head. He rubs a hand through his hair and stands, as if to head for the bathroom. But he stops halfway there, turns around to look at Sam.

Sam knows the look on his face. It says _I have something to tell you, but you might be mad_.

"You're back early. And you're vertical." Sam knows he has to talk first, or he'll be waiting all night. And he'd rather not wait to get this mystery conversation started. He's hoping _conversation_ doesn't become _argument_ , a transition that unfortunately seems to be becoming the norm as of late.

Dean clears his throat. "Yeah. About that. I didn't actually go out for a drink."

"Where then?" Sam tries for casual, thinks it probably comes out more like a mother scolding her child. Either way, he braces himself for the next words.

"I went to see Bethany again."

" _What_." Surprised, though Sam knows he really shouldn't be.

"Relax, she's harmless," Dean says, waving Sam off. "I know that for sure now. And I know a little more than that, actually. Could be a clue as to what we're dealing with here."

"What do you mean?" Sam asks, keeping his sentences short. It's in the unwritten rules on how to keep Dean talking. _Keep your tone just this side of judgmental. Use simple sentences. Keep your eyes wide and puppy-dog-like._

Dean comes to sit across from Sam on the opposite bed, pulling out his notepad as he sinks into the mattress. He seems almost self-conscious. It sets Sam on edge a bit, but he waits. He has to wait. Dean fidgets with the notepad for a minute, picking at the plastic spiraling.

"She uh...she told me some stuff," he says finally. "About the woods. About how to stay alive."

"You wrote it down?" Sam asks, having to work to keep the could-be taunt from his voice.

"She told me to. Seemed important." Dean's still playing defense, as if he's not sure what he wants to say. As if he's afraid he won't be taken seriously. Which means Sam will most definitely be taking him seriously. "You wanna hear it or not?"

"Yeah, sure. Shoot," Sam nods.

Dean crosses his ankles and flips open his notepad. He looks up at his brother.

"It's gonna sound crazy, okay?"

Sam avoids rolling his eyes in frustration. "Dean. Just read your damn notes."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo0000000000000000OOOOOO000000000oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The woods don't seem so lovely, but they sure are dark and deep. Sam wants to lock down on the growing unease that feels like it is currently coiling around his small intestine and squeezing with the force of a snake, but there doesn't seem to be a way to quell his anxiety. Dean seems fairly calm as he digs through the trunk to drop a few more weapons into the rapidly swelling bag at his feet, but Sam can see the tension in his neck and shoulders.

They're bringing everything they can think of to find a monster they don't yet know the name of, and it all seems to spell out something uncertain and risky, a combination rarely fruitful in their profession. Sam has a pack of supplies strapped to his back, essentials for a night or two of camping if it should come to that. He desperately hopes it won't, but he also knows they can't leave until it's done. Until whatever haunts these woods has been shot, decapitated, or flambéed. Maybe all three.

"Dean, what about you?" Sam says. He is leaning against the frame of the Impala, staring out into the trees and watching the sun make its lazy, yet deceptively rapid descent.

Dean shuts the trunk with a clang and gives his brother a look. "Uh, what about me?"

Sam lowers his head, picking at one of the straps of his backpack. He's been thinking about this for a while now. "The rules say not to leave marks on the trees. And the last time we were here, you carved our path to get back out. And the more I think about it, the more that spells bad news for you. So..."

Dean scoffs and rolls his eyes, hauling the weapons bag over his shoulder. "So...what? You go in solo? Sure. Fantastic idea.."

"Come on Dean," Sam reasons. "You've already broken one of the rules. Who knows what the consequences will be."

Sam knows Dean's already thought about this. There's no way he wouldn't. So he's not surprised by his brother's response. Just worried. Always worried, it seems.

"Doesn't matter. Fact of the matter is, you're not going alone," Dean counters. "So either we stop wasting time and we go in together, or we let someone else die tonight."

Sam shakes his head and stays silent. It's the only answer Dean needs.

"Good," he says, turning on his heel and heading for the trees. Sam only hesitates a second before he lunges for his brother, grabbing onto the first thing he can find, which happens to be the strap of the weapons bag, and yanking. Dean stumbles back a few steps, his left foot catching in the dirt and almost landing him on his ass. He manages to twist out of the fall at the last second, half-landing against Sam's chest. Dean shoves off from him immediately, whirling to face his brother.

"Dude, what the hell?" he exclaims, confusion interwoven with the lines of frustration pulling at his expression.

"Say your name. You have to say your name aloud," Sam says, defensiveness rising in his tone. Sure, there might've been a better way to stop his brother from walking into the woods and almost immediately breaking _another_ rule, but in that moment, Sam couldn't think of it fast enough. And he's a little uneasy about the whole situation. About the woods. Teeth set on edge and all that. So his words come harsh and accusing. "Jesus Dean, you're the one who wrote down the stupid rules. Least you could do is follow them."

"Sorry," Dean says. The eye roll is pure instinct this time- Dean knows Sam is right. Dean turns back around so that he's facing the imposing form of the trees. He clears his throat dramatically, throwing his arms out to either side of him.

"My name is Dean Winchester," he projects loudly. "This is my pain in the ass brother Sam Winchester." A thumb jabbed over his shoulder. "And we are now entering the woods. Thank you for your gracious hospitality."

Arms still outstretched, Dean bows low and ironical, nose to the ground. The weapons bag swings against his shoulder as he straightens up to shoot Sam an infuriating grin.

"Happy?" he asks. Sam lets out a long sigh in lieu of answering with an insult they don't have time for. He steps forward and closes his eyes, toes to the edge of the trees. The last of the day's sunlight pools at his feet.

"My name is Sam Winchester," he announces, as if to give a proper introduction to the long line of shrubbery in front of him. He nods his own affirmation, letting that fact settle beneath his skin. Dean had read him the rules, and then Sam had read and reread them again. And again. Because Dean was right: they seemed important. They seemed like the best chance at staying alive. So as stupid as he feels, as ridiculous as it is to announce themselves to the undergrowth, that's exactly what they have to do.

"Ready?" Dean asks, joking cast aside for the moment. They both remember how it had felt the last time they had walked through these trees, and Sam can tell Dean isn't looking forward to what might await them this time.

Sam isn't excited by the prospect either, but he nods, thumbing the straps of his pack.

"Let's go."

* * *

 **Your thoughts are always appreciated if you've got time to share. See you next week!**


	8. Chapter 8

He hears it almost immediately, but does his best to ignore it. There's no sense in bringing Sam's attention to it, because Dean can tell that just like last time the soft, haunting voice that twists through the trees and brushes against his ears is not heard by his little brother. And he also knows the rules now, so he thinks that maybe if he just ignores it, doesn't follow after it, it will eventually go away.

But it's been almost an hour, and the voice has only grown louder, poisonous words wafting out into the air like the fumes of some radioactive experiment gone wrong.

 _He's not the same_ , the voice whispers. Dean tries to push the words away with a swift shake of his head, but they seem to slide over his skin, tickling at his ears.

 _He'll never really be the same again. You brought him back, but he is a broken thing, a ruined piece of what he used to be, and you cannot hope to fix him this time._

"Dean? You okay?" Dean registers Sam's words, but he's distracted by the other ones, so he doesn't think he answers. He just keeps walking, hoping to drown it all out. They are deep into the trees now, flashlight beams bouncing out in front of them like the last time. Except this is worse than last time.

 _Scratch scratch scratching at the wall inside his head,_ the voice continues.

 _Tap tap tapping at the cracks that run along it._

"Dean? Stop for a second," Sam says from behind him. Which means Dean must be walking ahead of him. He's not really sure of where he's going anymore, just walking in any direction that might take him far away from the thing that whispers in his ear. Did they even have a direction to begin with? Did they even know where they were going? What they were supposed to find out here? Because so far, all Dean has found is this voice, and it won't _stop_.

 _One day it will all fall apart._

 _So fast you won't even have time to blink._

 _And Sammy will be gone forever._

"Dean? Come on. Hold on for a second!" Sam yells, and Dean feels his body lurch when Sam takes ahold of him, flips him around and shakes him hard and violent. It's the second time Sam's done that today, and Dean wonders why words don't work on him anymore. Wonders why Sam has had to resort to more forceful ways of getting and keeping his attention. "Dean, snap out of it!"

"It's...I…the voice." Dean realizes he should probably says something, should probably explain why his breathing is too fast and why his heart is jackhammering inside his chest. "I hear it again. I've been hearing it."

Sam has him by the shoulders, flashlight digging into Dean's skin with the beam pointed skyward, and he's staring straight at him, trying to make Dean come back from wherever he's been. His jaw rolls at Dean's words, and Dean recognizes the bit of panic in his brother's eyes, because it rests permanently behind his own pupils now. Ever since Sam came back. Because maybe the voice is right…

 _Tip tap tip tap. Whoops, hear that? Something's breaking..._

Dean reaches out instinctively with the hand not holding his own flashlight, grabbing for the front of Sam's shirt in an attempt to ground himself. He squeezes his eyes shut.

"Tell me what you hear," Sam says. He sounds calm, but he's still holding Dean by the shoulders and Dean can feel the tension rolling off from his fingertips. He latches onto that feeling, tries to make it more real than the thing he knows doesn't exist.

"Tell me what the voice is saying," Sam says, finally asking the question Dean had feared he would eventually find his way to.

Dean shakes his head hard, trying to dislodge the continued murmurs. "It's not important. It's not real," he says, working to convince himself. "Let's just keep going. I'm not 'following it into sorrow' or whatever the rules said, so it doesn't matter."

Dean shoves past Sam, heading deeper into the trees, trying to leave the voice behind. He walks with hurried steps, swinging the beam of his flashlight back up in attempt to light his path, but he still doesn't see it until he's on top of it, and it is as if it has come rushing up to meet him. Dean freezes at the edge of the immense emptiness in front of him: there is suddenly nothing there for what seems like miles, an enormous blank spot in the middle of the woods.

No trees, no grass, no weeds.

The Devil's Tramping Ground.

"I thought it was supposed to be smaller…" Dean mutters, almost to himself. He feels Sam come up behind him, watches the path of Sam's flashlight, and he doesn't have to look at his brother's face to know that Sam is just as awestruck by the sight that has seemingly materialized before them as he is. It wouldn't be this off-putting, it _shouldn't_ be this goddamn _scary_ , except that feeling from before, that jolt of complete and utter despair has begun to once again creep inside Dean's head. He can feel it draining him. He can feel the presence of whatever lives in these woods surging up through his boots and threatening to bury every last good thought left alive. And God help him, it _feels_ like the Devil.

"It looks like it goes on for miles," Sam whispers back, his voice echoing eerily across the open space. A pause, followed by more silence. They stare out at the expanse, lost in it, and Dean is just beginning to wonder why they haven't said anything when Sam finally speaks up, the words coming suddenly, hurriedly.

"Count your fingers ten," he says.

Dean turns to face his brother again, Sam's face lit by the moon still filtering in through the tops of the trees. It glows hollow. "What?"

"Count your fingers ten. Count them again," Sam recites. He doesn't look at his fingers when he says it. He's looking at Dean. "Were we supposed to do that _before_ we came into the woods? Did Bethany specify that?"

Dean wracks his brain. "I don't know. Why?"

Sam closes his eyes and takes a breath. After a pause, he holds his left hand in front of him, glancing down at it warily. With a gulp and a nod, Sam brings his eyes back up to meet Dean's. "Because I count eight on my left hand."

"Sam…"

"Dean, count your fingers. Now."

Dean slides the flashlight into his side pocket, holding both hands in front of him. The light from the moon is bright enough to see his fingers, so Dean counts. One to ten, nothing out of place.

"Got all ten," he says, dropping his hands back to his sides. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. I'm not the one who wrote down the rulebook," Sam rebukes.

Dean feels the jagged edges of doubt cutting their way into his mind. Maybe he'd missed a word or two. Maybe Bethany had given more instruction, and he just hadn't been listening close enough. Maybe she really is just insane. And maybe that's what's going to get them killed. God, _why_ hadn't he asked more questions? Dean knows the frustration in Sam's tone is born of fear, but that doesn't stop the bite in his own response. "Look, she didn't say _when_ to count our damn fingers, okay?"

Sam holds out a hand in surrender (and it looks just fine to Dean, just five fingers and that's it), tone instantly shifting to one of understanding. "Okay, fine," he says. "Doesn't matter. It's just an illusion, and we know it. So it can't hurt us."

Dean works to adjust his own voice, but it still comes hard and biting; sandpaper to wood. It feels like he's losing bits of his usually impenetrable control at a time, happening so gradually that it's almost impossible to recognize. But Dean Winchester has always been profoundly in touch with the barrier he's built around himself, and though it is less literal than the structure currently blocking up the inside of his little brother's head, the wall placed there by Death, he can still feel when it begins to rupture. So maybe that's why his voice climbs higher than it should on his next words, why the shaking of his vocal cords has begun to reach to his fingertips. "Great, so your freaky spider-hand is harmless," he snarks, fear lamely and, based on Sam's expression, unsuccessfully covered with sarcasm. "Super. What do we do now?"

"Well this is it, right?" Sam shrugs, letting his flashlight once again roam the emptiness that lies before them. He seems more awestruck than alarmed now, eyes scanning the packed dirt in front of him as if he's searching out clues. Dean's used to seeing that look at the library when Sam stumbles across a new bit of lore or finds an ancient book to dissect, but out here in these twisted woods, it seems out of place. Sam should have his guard up, game face on.

"This is the Devil's Ground," he continues. "So we wait. We wait for whatever's coming, and we be ready for when it comes."

Dean shakes his head. "This is the dumbest idea we've ever had. Sammy, this place…"

"I know. But leaving now means someone else dies," Sam cuts in, echoing Dean's words from earlier. "And if we can end it tonight, if there's any chance...we have to try."

Dean swallows. Nods. "You bring a game of Scrabble or something?"

Sam shakes his head, a smile twitching at his lips. "I'll go get firewood," he says

"Not alone you won't."

"Well someone has to stay here," Sam insists. He's still got that faraway look in his eye, a little too unfocused.

"Why?" Dean asks.

"I...I don't know. I don't remember why. But it feels important."

"Important that I stay here while you go off alone?" Dean clarifies. He can't understand how that could ever be the right move.

"Yes?" Sam's answer sounds like a question. He's confused, which means Dean's confused too. Because Sam rarely does disoriented. Sam always knows the answers, and Dean can't help but wonder if the reason he doesn't anymore is because his newly-recovered soul took one too many hits at the Devil's hands. And if Dean had realized it earlier, if he had just done more, sooner, to get his brother back. Then maybe none of this would be happening right now.

"Sammy, let's just take a breath," Dean reasons, trying to focus enough for the both of them. "We just have to…"

The voice cuts him off, riding over the silent wind.

 _Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Heard he had a great big fall,_ it taunts. It is a hollow, cackling sound, raw decibels carrying across the currents of a radio buried beneath the ocean, reception somehow still coming through. The drowning voice continues, and Dean can only listen.

 _But that's not the right rhyme for this story. This is the one that is true:_

 _Humpty Dumpty had a great wall_

 _Till it crumbled apart all ruined and small._

 _Inside a mind once so bright._

 _That's the last time Sammy ever saw the light._

"Just have to what?" Sam asks, smacking Dean on the shoulder. Dean shakes himself back to awareness, doing his best to ignore the background noise. But it suddenly seems as if _everything_ is background noise, a low, buzzing tone that circulates the air and sings directly into his ears. He can't focus on his own thoughts, and they scatter like crabs on an infinite beach, digging themselves beneath the sand until they become frustratingly unreachable.

Dean brings his eyes up to meet Sam's, trying not to let the panic show. "I don't know," he says. "I don't…. remember what I was saying. Is that part of it? Do we forget things?"

"That wasn't in the rules," Sam says, as if that means it can't be true.

Dean wishes he could focus a little more clearly at the moment, but he can't seem to force his mind into cooperating. Maybe Bethany had mentioned something. "Are you sure?" he asks.

"Pretty sure," Sam nods, though he seems pretty clueless too.

"Great, so I'm just losing my mind," Dean replies, turning to look back out at the Devil's Ground. He adjusts the weapons bag on his shoulder, securing the straps over the collar of his jacket.

"I think that happened awhile ago," Sam tries to joke. It falls eerily flat in the overwhelming silence of the trees behind them that move without rustling. Dean swears he can feel them shift, but not in the way that trees do. It is as if the roots of the trees are moving, inching closer and closer beneath the ground until they're right up behind him, tickling at his shoulder blades. Dean wonders what on earth would make him have a thought like that, and before he can help it, he spins around to face the trees. They are stoic and still as ever, but Dean still can't shake the unease. He rubs a hand over his eyes, pausing halfway through the motion.

"Hey Sam?" he says.

Sam seems as though he's gone somewhere else, expression distant, but he immediately pulls back to give Dean his full attention. "Yeah?"

Dean sighs, holding both hands out in front of him.

"I count twelve fingers now."

* * *

 **Spoiler alert: this story will continue to get weirder. Hope I haven't lost you yet =). See you Thursday.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A bit late in posting this today but such is life sometimes, eh? Anyway, hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Sam's not sure how or even when they lose each other.

It's all so...wrong out here. The woods are screwing with them, that much has become painfully obvious. Dean's been hearing voices (and hiding it for who knows how long in his typical, stoic fashion) and Sam's been...well. Sam's been seeing stuff. And okay, call him a hypocrite, because it's not like he's been jumping to share his mind's latest concoctions with his brother either. It just didn't seem like it would do either of them any good.

Because Sam knows none of it can be real.

The extra fingers don't throw him too much: Bethany's patented rules prepared him for that a little bit, and it's not like it's the weirdest thing he's seen all week. A little disconcerting, sure, but they've faced worse. And like he told Dean, there's no way that can hurt them. So that's fine, but that's not where it ends.

There have been images, little blurs of shape and barely-there substance. Nothing concrete, nothing he can really grasp onto and identify (extra fingers or not), but it's enough to tell him he's losing his grip. A few hard blinks have been enough to scatter the images thus far, but after an hour or so out in these woods, Sam's not sure if he really wants to keep them at bay anymore.

He thinks he's going to get firewood. He's walking, anyway, and he is alone. Which is strange, because he could've sworn Dean was right next to him just a second ago. That should bother him. A lot. He should be turning around, right now, sprinting back to the last place he saw his brother. They have to stay together. Or was it...they had to split up? He honestly doesn't remember.

But he does remember that pit in his gut from before- the ugly, chest-pinching feeling that had plagued them both on their last trip into the woods. That feeling is back, and it's even stronger than before. Still, he keeps walking. It's important that he keeps walking. He's looking for something, something important. Something he lost a long time ago, he thinks, something he's missed ever since and has never been able to get back. But here, tonight in these woods, he thinks he can find it. If only he just keeps looking.

Something moves.

It is barely a flicker, just one split second of motion before whatever it is disappears behind the nearest tree, but Sam sees it, and he freezes. It holds more substance than any of his previous flashes of...whatever he's been seeing. He reaches for his gun and checks the magazine, wondering why it wasn't already in his hand. They really need to get it together, him and Dean, because it seems like they're losing their instincts out here, and that can't be good. And where is Dean anyway? Shouldn't they have stayed together? He feels like…

There it is again. A shape moving from one tree to the next, just a few yards ahead of him.

Sam ducks behind the nearest tree and waits, listening, the six fingers on his left hand pressed into the bark. Sam blinks hard and fast, trying to make the extra finger disappear. A twig snaps just off to his left, and he lunges automatically, swinging his body around to face the threat, gun raised.

His heart stops. He feels it literally stutter inside his chest, just a fraction of a second too long without a beat. He almost wishes it had killed him because he knows he's going to die anyway, and at least a heart attack would've been relatively painless compared to what awaits him now. Because everyone in this town was right. It's called The Devil's Tramping Ground, and that's exactly what it is.

Lucifer grins, squinted eyes and split tongue, the ugliest thing, and Sam almost loses his footing.

His knees threaten to crumple, his breath whooshing out of him like an airplane with a hole blown through its middle. He takes several automatic steps back until his spine is pressing into the base of the tree he'd just been crouched behind. His gun is still raised, though he knows it's pointless. He's a dead man, and the thought wouldn't be so horrible if he knew death would come to him quickly.

"You...you can't be here," Sam says, a meaningless denial. Lucifer chuckles, shoulders lifting just to drop into the most casual of shrugs.

"I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, Sam," he says. His stance is deceptively relaxed, arms dangling loosely at his sides. "You, on the other hand? I thought part of that big, world-saving plan of yours was that you'd get to spend eternity with me. I feel cheated."

"I didn't…. that was the plan." Sam's not sure why he's indulging the Devil in conversation. Delaying the inevitable, he supposes.

"Well then tell me, who ruined all our fun? Actually, don't answer that. I already know," says the Devil. "Your brother out here too?" He peeks wryly around Sam's shoulder, as if someone might be hiding behind the tree Sam is pressed against. "I'm surprised he's not glued to your side, poor bastard. Never could live a second without his precious Sammy." Lucifer shakes his head. "You ought to feel honored. You're a hot commodity. Quite the prize, so it would seem."

Sam doesn't answer, though he slowly lowers his backpack off his shoulders and onto the ground. He's not sure what his plan is, but whatever move he makes will be a lot easier without the added weight. Lucifer watches in amusement, almost as if he can see the cogs of Sam's mind racing through every possibility, every scenario, searching desperately for one that might include him somehow getting out of this alive. And Lucifer knows Sam will find none.

The Devil takes another step closer. "I'd much rather run into you both at the same time. Not quite the same making you scream when your other half can't even hear it."

"He's not here," Sam says with finality. Because even if he has to die here, maybe he can at least save Dean from the same fate. But this is Lucifer, and he only smiles and shakes his head knowingly.

"Nah, I'm sure he's out here somewhere. Don't you worry Sammy, I'll find him."

There is a pause. A moment where nothing stirs and nothing breathes. Sam stares down the Devil, and the Devil stares back.

And then Sam runs.

He tears backwards around the tree he'd been standing against, pushing off with his back and lunging in the opposite direction, feet scrambling beneath him until he finds his stride and levels off into a full sprint, muscles already screaming in protest after just a few seconds. Part of him knows this is fruitless, but fight or flight has kicked into high gear, and he's not able to ignore his most basic instincts. At any moment, he expects it to be over. Expects to be keeled over on the ground, guts spilling from his stomach or leg muscles shredded or head split apart in a crackling explosion of fireworks. Something creative and Devil-like. Something slow that exists somewhere beyond the worst pain he's ever known.

But there is only the pumping of his heart, the straining of his muscles, the slap of his boots as they hit the dirt beneath him over and over again, taking him farther and deeper into the woods and, he can only hope, farther away from Lucifer.

Sam doesn't know how long he runs for, and he doesn't remember deciding to stop, but suddenly he needs to, long stride slowing to a walk. He tries to recapture his breath, tries to match it to the thundering heartbeat inside his chest, indisputable evidence of his impossible survival. He forces himself to keep moving, tripping over his feet even as he loses the energy to pick them up and put them down.

This must be a game. Lucifer is toying with him, letting him hold on just long enough to think he's escaped. It will all come crashing down on him eventually, the same way it always did in the Cage. Sam startles a little at that, wonders how he knows...how he _remembers_ that. He thinks about what little Dean had told about the wall inside his head, and he prays it's not this fragile. He doesn't think he can deal with memories of Hell pushing to the forefront of his mind right now, coupled with everything else.

A flash of something again, out in the trees, and Sam knows this is it. No sense in trying to outrun the Devil, though he had to try either way. He can only hope that Dean's long gone by now. That somehow he's followed the rules and found his way home. He knows it's a far-fetched, crazy wish. He knows Bethany and her rules could never have prepared them for Satan himself.

There is a smell in the air now, and Sam expects it to be the reek of death, that of rotting flesh and meat sizzling from bones, but it isn't. It smells like a night out on the sea, a breeze-blown summer sky mingled with the forever-familiar stench of old textbooks. He could almost swear he hears the whispering of worn pages turning on that breeze, can picture the inside of a library, a dorm room, a flash of blonde hair and it's like coming home. And wouldn't he love to do that, wouldn't he just love to remember what that feels like...and then she's there.

Just like that.

He sees her standing in front of him for just an instant, a flash like a memory, but one he's never had before. Still, he knows it's Jess, as beautiful as he has always remembered her to be and here and alive and it's the Devil, he knows it's just Lucifer playing his games but Sam doesn't think he cares anymore because he's back at Stanford and he remembers what it means to feel safe, if only to have the illusion of it for a little while. And in this world, this world where Jess resides, the Devil is nothing more than a word in a seldom-opened Bible, a warning for a naughty child. The real thing doesn't have to exist if he just pretends it doesn't, if he just stays here with her.

And the moment he thinks this is the moment she appears again, this time farther away. But this time she stays solid, a form he can move towards. So he does. He approaches slowly, hoping she'll stay. She does. She smiles at him.

"With that pace, I'll have gray in my hair before you make it over here," she laughs, and oh God Sam's missed that voice, that laugh, that glimmer of innocent mischief in her eyes and the way the left corner of her mouth twitches upward just a little more than the right when she smiles. "Come on, Sam. Hurry up already."

His long legs take him the rest of the way to her, swift and just this side of walking, but he stops before he reaches her, feet inches from hers, staring straight at her. And he remembers it all like yesterday. And yes, it's been a long time, so many long and lonely years since she's been gone (hundreds if he's counting Hell and he's somehow sure that counts because he doesn't remember it but he _feels_ it in the weight of his bones, the density of his skin and the chalkiness of his tongue, as if he is still choking on flames and ash) and maybe he should've moved on by now, maybe most people would have, but she has always been more to him than a first love. And she's here and it's like she never left except she did and it was his fault…. and can he really do this to her again?

He stares at her and he decides that the Devil will only live inside his head if he lets it, so he lets it _go_. Forgets it all and falls against her skin like it's a river and he's the skipping stone, presses his lips to hers like she is the last drop of fresh water left on land and he drinks her in so completely, so greedily that he's surprised she doesn't vanish again like she has for all these years.

"I missed you," Sam says, and it sounds like his own voice but it comes out funny, like he's choking on ashes again. She brushes her thumb against his cheek and flicks away the moisture there, so Sam guesses he's crying, but why shouldn't he be? Part of him knows this can't be real. Part of him knows Lucifer will make him pay for this later, will let the moment carry until he's just beginning to forget Hell, and then he'll be pulled right back in. But for now, Sam doesn't care. As long as he gets this, just for now.

"Where do you want to go?" Jess asks when they finally pull apart long enough to speak.

"I don't care. Anywhere you go," Sam says. He knows it sounds like a line from a movie, so he's not surprised when Jess laughs again and he's glad he said it even if it sounded stupid, because at least he got to hear that sound.

She takes his hand in hers, squeezes his fingers and pulls him along with her. Sam drifts after her as if in a dream (and it is, isn't it? But even if it isn't real, he thinks he'll just stay here anyway, just for as long as he can). They walk together for a long time, and Sam meant it, he doesn't care where they're going, but he begins to wonder, just a little bit, if they have a direction or if they're just walking in circles and if that makes any difference. He finds himself wondering if he and Jess can make a home in the woods, if they'll have to live out here. He doesn't think he would mind. He knows he can find food for them if he needs to, knows he can hunt for it, and that thought makes him pause mid-step. Jess is forced to a stop too, her hand still folded in his. She turns back to glance at him curiously.

"Something wrong?" she asks.

Sam shakes his head. He's suddenly dizzy. "I don't know."

And he doesn't. He doesn't know anything and that doesn't seem right because he _always_ know the answers and if he's not sure, he'll go find them, and that's why he's always the one that does the research and why Dean... _Dean_.

 _Where is he?_ He'd left him behind, right? He'd left his brother behind in the woods where they'd come to kill a monster and Jess is looking at him with those eyes of hers but Sam can't focus on that right now, can't get sucked back into her gaze because there is something important he's forgotten, something he has to find his way back to…

It is at this moment that a scream cuts through the air, so piercing and so terrifyingly wretched that Sam feels it slice across his chest, stealing his air the way Jess used to sometimes when she flipped her hair a certain way or looked at him a certain way or brushed her fingers against his skin when she was really and truly alive. And he knows she's not anymore. He knows she can't stay here with him. And as soon as he lets himself know this, that is when the dream ends.

Sam feels her hand disintegrate within his own, watches the dust lift away the memory of her face as he stands there, trying not to forget and trying to remember and then there is nothing left of her, just the lingering touch of skin and his empty, outstretched hand.

The scream comes again and it sounds like his name, carrying over the wind in a wail that is the embodiment of fear, the epitome of panic. It pull as something inside Sam, something that makes him almost forget about what he'd found and lost so quickly again. He knows Jess wasn't real, and he hopes to God that Lucifer wasn't real either, that it's still just his mind- these woods- playing tricks on him. But it doesn't matter either way, not anymore. The only thing that matters right now is finding the source of that voice.

Because the scream is Dean's.

* * *

 **Have a good rest of your week, see you next Thursday, and of course, drop a line if you've got the time!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A bit of a delay in posting again, whoops! Here's chapter 10.**

* * *

Halfway there, Dean realizes he doesn't have the weapons bag anymore. And that's bad. That's so bad, but he can't stop moving, can't stop his stumbling feet from scrabbling for purchase on the forest floor and pushing his body forward. Halfway to where, he's not sure. He just knows he has to follow that voice.

Has to make it stop.

 _You think you can stop it, but you can't_ , the voice is saying. _He's doomed, and you're the one that ruined him. Should've left him dead all those years ago with a knife in his back. Should've learned how to move on._

 _You've damned him, and he might forgive you. But he shouldn't._

"Come on," Dean challenges, part of him knowing it's pointless to speak to a voice that doesn't exist, the other part of him moving rapidly from frustration to downright fury. "Come on out. I'll show you unforgivable."

He knows he should stop walking, something about rules, but there is a disconnect between mind and body. And following this disembodied voice seems like the only thing he can do right now. Seems like his only hope. Almost absently, he wonders where Sam is before he remembers that Sam isn't here anymore. That he isn't himself anymore. Probably never will be again. That thought wrecks him if he lets himself think it, so he doesn't. Just pushes past it and onto the next thought, which happens to be: _why are the trees moving?_

He thinks it's probably just a trick of the sunlight (and when did the sun rise again? How long has he been here?), but still, his gut is rarely wrong. Right now it seems to be screaming at him, only it's a muted scream, as if he's turned the volume down on the remote. He remembers the feeling from earlier…. from yesterday? That thought about the roots of the trees inching closer and closer, but now that feeling is stronger. And he swears the branches above his head hadn't been leaning so low just a few minutes ago. Or was it yesterday? Dean realizes he still has his flashlight out, despite the fact that it's daylight now. He clicks it off, goes to put it in with the guns and the flamethrower and the machete before he remembers he doesn't have the weapons bag.

And then it's nighttime again. Just like that.

The stars blink at him expectantly, nothing but a trickle of moonlight washing over the woods, shedding its phantom glow over the dead ground.

Dean stops, stands in the sudden darkness and tries not to let the panic overtake his instincts. He knows there's an explanation for this, if he can just calm down long enough to figure it out. Come on Dean, think.

 _You're almost there_ , says the voice, distracting him from his thoughts and raising goose bumps on his skin. _Come along now._

Dean stays rooted to the spot.

It takes every ounce of control he has, but something inside him has cracked apart and tried to come back together. He can feel it, just like he can feel that some of the scattered pieces haven't found their way home yet. They float inside his head, inside his blood, scratching beneath the skin, and without them he knows he's missing something vital. So Dean waits. He waits for it all to connect, and he thinks he's beginning to remember the woods, the rules, the brother he's lost track of, and he knows he has to turn around, has to get back to Sam, and that's just about when the screaming starts.

It's the same voice from before, the one that has led him here, and it seems to have lost patience. The screaming cuts through everything, and Dean's hands immediately fly to his ears, trying to block out the sound of it. He returns the scream with his own cry of pain, feeling the stickiness of his own blood beginning to form against his palms where they press against his ears. All Dean wants to do is crumple to the ground, but he knows that won't relieve the thundering in his ears, so instead, he runs.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo0000000000000000OOOOOO000000000oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

If he had the time or presence of mind to think about it, he'd realize he looks insane, sprinting through the woods with his hands clamped over his ears. But as it is, Dean doesn't care. He just knows he has to get away from the noise. So he keeps running.

Eventually the screaming lessens in intensity, fading into a far-off wail. Dean lets his hands fall away from his ears, sneaking a quick glance at his fingers as he continues to run, confirming that the screaming really was loud enough to make his ears bleed. He diligently ignores the fact that the blood has managed to stick to not ten, but thirteen fingers. _Just an illusion_ , he tells himself, finally slowing his pace to a walk. The realization hits that he is incredibly lost.

And that the sun has crept its way back into the sky again after a night that barely could've lasted more than an hour.

Dean stops again, trying to gain his bearings. It's impossible to know where he is, and his stomach rolls at the thought that he's lost Sam. He doesn't even remember the conscious decision to split up, only that they had, and that it had been a terrible idea. Probably, Dean realizes, the idea wasn't their own.

Dean shivers a little, realizing that the air has gone stale and cold around him. He thinks briefly of ghosts, wishes for the reassuring weight of a shotgun in his hands. He reaches behind his back on instinct, comes away with his Colt. Relief surges through him momentarily as he realizes he isn't completely unarmed. He weighs the gun in his hand, checks the clip.

"Sam?" he tries, letting his voice carry over the trees. "SAMMY!"

Nothing. There is no flutter of a bird's wings, startled from its hideout. Despite the cold, there is no sound or feel of the wind to match it. Nothing rustles, and it seems that nothing alive exists except for Dean, who can feel his heartbeat hammering inside his chest. It is so loud in the surrounding silence that he's almost surprised Sam hasn't found him just from the sound of it. But there is no response to his call, so he tries again. And again.

Silence reigns.

Dean breathes in the motionless air, trying to settle his nerves. And then he picks a direction, and he walks, gun raised. It's better than doing nothing, but it still feels pointless, as if he's doomed to walk these woods forever. He is grateful for the sunlight that filters in through the trees now, even as it sets him on edge with the suddenness of this new day. He thinks of Hell, of how slowly the time passed there. It seems to be moving in the opposite direction here, the days bleeding into one another swiftly and without reason. Dean's not sure which he prefers.

He wanders aimlessly, searching out proof that something other than himself and the forest around him exists. After a while, Dean pauses, squinting at a tree off in the distance. He clambers towards it, steps heavy with sudden exhaustion, reaching out a blood-slicked hand to trace the ruined bark where he'd carved a neat X the other night with his knife. Dean practically sags in relief. They'd taken a slightly different route this time, one that had led them to the Tramping Ground, but Dean thinks he remembers how the two paths intersect from all their canvassing, which means he can find the last place he remembers seeing his brother. He advances a few steps, and sure enough, another large X scars the bark of the next tree. Dean's steps quicken, the need to get back to his brother outweighing the fatigue that threatens to knock him off balance. He moves mindlessly now, practically careening from one disfigured tree to the next, letting himself be guided by his own path.

And it is then that the trees begin to move.

Dean remembers watching Snow White once, when it had been the only working channel on the motel TV. He knows he teased a six-year-old Sam ruthlessly for being afraid not of the Evil Queen, but of the trees that seemed to come alive around Snow White before she finds the dwarves. It isn't until now, decades later, that Dean understands that same horror.

The trees are swaying overhead, branches creaking. It's the first real noise he's heard in a long while besides his own uneven breath, and Dean immediately regrets his wish to have the silence broken. An enormous root bursts out from the ground off to his left, a huge upheaval of dirt scattering to either side. It coils like a serpent, ready to strike, and with barely a thought, Dean is running again.

Behind him, he can hear the forest coming alive, tall branches twisting down to meet him, scratching at his skin and pulling at his clothes. The right sleeve of his jacket is shredded in the wake of an oncoming branch, almost forcing the gun from his hand. He manages to hold onto it, but the hits keep coming, the arms of the trees swiping at him mercilessly until there isn't an inch of him without a scratch. Still, he keeps running, flinging his body through the underbrush. The roots of the trees on either side of him continue to unfurl themselves from beneath the ground, flinging dirt and yellowed grass across the forest floor. The roots twirl around his feet, snatching away his balance.

He falls hard, left ankle twisted at an unnatural angle as he lands with his palms out in front of him, hands taking the brunt of his weight. Almost before he's hit the ground, Dean is already crawling, hauling his uncooperative left leg behind him, fingers digging into the soft earth. Fear has invaded every instinct Dean has, until all he can think about is getting away, getting out, being anywhere but here. Dirt cakes beneath his fingernails and sweat pools at the tip of his nose and mingles with the dirt as he goes, mixing in with the blood flowing from the various scrapes that litter the side of his face.

"SAM!" he screams, knowing it's probably pointless but trying anyway because Sam has to come for him, right? He has to be close.

Dean knows it the moment he's lost the fight.

He's still screaming his brother's name, still crawling his way across the ground, and he feels it when the first root takes hold, wraps itself firmly around his bad ankle and doesn't let go. He kicks out blindly, desperately trying to dislodge it, even as another one twists its way up his arm, holding him in place, stomach to the ground. If he had to pick a way to die, Dean's pretty sure this is one of the worst ways to go. He'd opt for Hellhounds over possessed trees any day, and he wouldn't make that decision lightly. He still remembers.

But the trees themselves don't seem to respect that wish. Instead, the forest floor consumes him slowly, spiraling and folding over him with an almost graceful laziness. Dean has managed to somehow hold onto his gun, and he works to keep his right arm free of the roots that bind him. He manages to get a few shots off, aiming for anything that crawls towards him. It works to hold them off, the branches seeming to almost scream when they are ripped apart by the bullets. Dean's pretty sure he's yelling nonsense at this point, firing wildly even as he feels the roots begin to bury themselves back into the ground, this time with his body beneath them.

And then, inevitably, he runs out of bullets.


	11. Chapter 11

**Happy Thursday- here's another somewhat late post =).**

* * *

Sam is running again and his body is screaming at him and he doesn't care because he's pretty sure he just heard another scream, a real scream, and this one sounded closer and more real than Jess's long-forgotten laugh and this one was Dean's and Sam has never in his life heard his brother sound like that.

It's enough for him to ignore the heaviness of his body, almost enough for him to push thoughts of Jessica from his mind as he picks through the trees, hurtling to the sound of that voice. And then he can't hear it anymore and that is somehow worse because the only reason Dean would stop yelling, would stop fighting is if... _no_.

Sam's so distracted by that thought that he can't catch himself in time.

It's as if the forest floor has all congregated to one single spot, and it's the spot that Sam has just tripped over. He lands on his knees and scratches up the palms of his hands, but he won't let this slow him down. He's on his feet again in an instant, takes off at a dead sprint once more...and then he stops. Whirls back around to that giant tangle of branches and roots and the glint of silver that doesn't belong in the woods. The glint of a gun.

Dean's gun.

"Oh God."

Sam's on his knees in the dirt now, clawing furiously at the obscene amount of roots and branches that have converged along the ground in a shape that can only be his brother, buried beneath. And that theory turns out to be correct, because after a few more agonizing seconds of digging and ripping up roots, Sam finds a pinky finger.

Sam yells his brother's name even as he continues to dig, this time with even more desperation. He pats his coat down, searching for the knife that always hides somewhere in his pocket. And then he remembers the machete, the one he'd insisted on bringing on their first trip into the woods. And he'd brought it again, just in case. He unhitches it from his belt and then he is carving deep gashes into the branches that lie along the ground, sawing and tearing through the thick bark as quickly as he can manage without digging too deep and meeting his brother's back. He fully expects the trees to come after him, to bury him alive like they have Dean, but they do not so much as shift in the breeze that still smells faintly of Jessica. Sam doesn't know why that is, why he has been spared the wrath of the forest itself, but he doesn't dwell on it.

He digs.

He doesn't know how long it takes, only that his efforts don't seem fast or efficient enough. Sam wonders how long Dean's been buried here, how long it took for the twisted roots to fold themselves completely around his brother's body until he couldn't move, until all he could do was scream his brother's name without even the hope that Sam would find him.

Sam almost didn't find him.

As Sam works, slicing and carving and slashing almost mindlessly, a full hand and then an arm comes into view. The sleeve of Dean's jacket is next, and Sam traces upwards towards what he hopes is Dean's face, his movements becoming slower and more precise as he slices away at branches that have folded themselves over what he can now tell is the side of Dean's head. Sam's mostly using his fingers now instead of the knife, not wanting to do any damage. The work goes slower this way, and Sam can't help calling out Dean's name again even though he knows he won't get an answer.

And then, finally, Sam shoves aside the last of the shattered bark, clears the wreckage from his brother's body and pulls Dean across his lap, flipping him onto his back so that his slack face tilts up to the sunlight. And Sam could've sworn it was still nighttime, could've sworn they haven't been here in these woods for an entire night, but he doesn't really care what time or what day or what _century_ it is right now because Dean's not breathing.

Sam leans in closer to make sure, waiting for the tickle of Dean's breath against his ear. There is nothing.

"Come on," Sam pleads, as if Dean has a conscious choice. "Come on, don't do this to me."

He maneuvers Dean onto the ground, tilts his chin and rubs a hand over his brother's chest, pushing hard, willing his brother back to life for what feels like the millionth time.

And it works.

Like all the other countless times he's thought it over and done, Dean comes back to him without an assisted breath, without a single compression. He is just _awake_ , flying forward so suddenly that he practically folds in half. Breath comes to his lungs in a rush of strangled air and he chokes on it, coughs and sputters and falls back against Sam's chest and latches his fingers onto anything he can find, which happens to be the collar of Sam's shirt.

"Sam?" Dean coughs out, twisting to confirm his brother's presence.

"Yeah Dean, it's me. You're okay. Just breathe." Sam's voice drips with relief, his own fingers going numb, fisted tightly into the sleeve of Dean's jacket as he rocks them back and forth a little bit on the ground, as he breathes ragged breaths of his own and thinks of how he hasn't slept the same since Hell, of how it isn't about the dreams (most of which he doesn't even remember) but about the way he can't hear Dean's breathing if he's unconscious so it's better to stay awake and remember, remember that he's back and that his brother is here with him again, saved him again without asking for a single damn thing in return.

"Sam?"

Dean's voice sounds a little shredded. It pulls Sam back to where they are, shifting back and forth together on the forest floor and far from any path or landmark they might've known. "Yeah Dean?"

"How're we gonna get out of here?" Dean asks, so at least they're on the same page.

Sam shakes his head. "I don't know." And then, because he needs to. "Maybe it's in Bethany's rulebook."

Dean groans, chokes on a half-laugh. "Not the time."

"Might not be another time," Sam whispers. He feels Dean stiffen, instantly resents the distance put between them when Dean shoves off from Sam's chest to sit on the ground opposite him. Dean looks Sam in the eye.

"Don't," he says.

Sam sighs, almost as though he's resigned. Which he isn't. "Dean, it's Lucifer. He's here."

Dean swallows. "You're sure?"

"I saw him."

"But was it really him?" Dean urges, brushing at the stray twigs that have collected in his hair. He shivers a little.

"I don't know. He felt real," Sam shakes his head. "And Jess. She was here too. I know that wasn't real, obviously. Except…"

"Except what?"

"Lucifer's done that before. When he first came to me, when he first...when he wanted my trust. He came to me as Jessica."

"You never told me that."

"It could be a hallucination," says Sam, unwilling to fall into a discussion they don't ever need to have as far as he's concerned.

"Let's go with that," Dean nods, accepting the redirect. "Either way, we gotta get out of here. That's priority one. Whatever we run into along the way… we'll deal with it."

"You ready to get up?"

Dean nods.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo0000000000000000OOOOOO000000000oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

They do. They get up. It takes a little while because Dean's still not breathing too well and when he tries to shove to his feet too quickly, he lets out a yelp and practically tackles Sam to the ground all over again before remembering that his ankle is busted. They try again, this time with Dean accepting Sam as a support, leaning against him until he can figure out exactly how much weight his bum leg can take. The answer turns out to be 'just enough to hobble the hell out of here,' and that's always been enough for the both of them. And now it's just about picking which direction happens to be synonymous with the whole 'out of here' part.

"Which way?" Dean asks, hand still wrapped around Sam's shoulder as he pivots awkwardly on his one good leg, trying to distinguish a difference between the thankfully now-stagnant trees. He recognizes nothing, and the thought sends a jolt of fear through him.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Sam says, letting his eyes wander over the endless landscape that stretches out on all sides.

"It feels different," Dean says. "I don't know how, but something feels different. Do you…?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Sam nods, meeting Dean's eyes. "That feeling from before, that dread. It's gone now."

"Why?" Dean asks, finally releasing the hold he has on Sam's shoulder to take a few awkward steps on his own, gauging the level of pain. It's not the worst he's ever felt, not by a long shot, but he can feel the tightening swell of his foot as he places it carefully on the forest floor.

"You're guess is as good as mine," Sam repeats, back to scanning the woods. He seems distracted again, but it's not the same, scary kind of misplaced demeanor Dean had noticed earlier. It's more like he's trying to decipher a complicated puzzle inside his head, enough so that he can't be bothered to give Dean anything but the same answer as before.

"Stop saying that," Dean growls, frustrated. Sure, the feeling of outright dread has left them, but that doesn't mean they can't still die out here in these woods. It's possible Lucifer is really here. It's possible that whatever dark presence exists out here has simply switched tactics, lulling them into a false sense of security.

"Dean?"

Dean shifts on his bad leg, turning to look at his brother. "Yeah?"

"It's this way." Sam's voice is certain, thumb jabbed over his shoulder, pointing the way.

"How do you know?" Dean asks, even as relief fills him. _Sam recognizes something._

"I don't know," Sam says, and Dean's heart drops a little. "It feels like it's this way."

Dean drops his chin to his chest, lets out a sigh. "That makes no sense."

"Just trust me. Come on," Sam says, holding out an arm for Dean to latch onto. And somehow, that's enough for Dean.

He ignores the offered support, but he starts moving in the direction Sam has pointed. Because Dean _does_ trust Sam, more than he ever thought he'd be able to again, and it's nice to let his brother take the reins after playing Jiminy Cricket to his Not-So-Real-Boy of a brother for so long.

Dean remembers thinking he wouldn't be able to pull the strings for much longer, that sooner or later he wouldn't be able to deal with the emptiness in Sam's replies or the apathetic coldness in his gaze or the permanent downward tick of Sam's lips or the fact that Sam was no longer _Sammy_ , so what was Dean working so hard to protect anymore anyway? But he remembers the strength in Sam's embrace right after he'd awoken, soul intact, the familiar warmth in his brimming eyes when he'd looked at Dean, and Dean wonders how he'd ever thought failure was an option.

There is comfort in that even now. That even if they don't make it out of these woods today or tonight or ever, at least he'll be with Sam. At least they'll have found their way back to each other one more time.

Dean doesn't voice any of this, because he's pretty sure Sam hasn't given up yet, which means Dean hasn't either. They clamber along, Dean limping just a few paces behind as they move in what appears to be no particular direction at all. But after a while, Dean begins to feel it- whatever Sam must've been feeling all along. It is as if some invisible cord has reached through his chest, attached itself to his heart, and is pulling at him with growing insistency. It's not painful, just a slight tug from somewhere deep in his chest, this thing that leads him along the path he suddenly knows must be the right one. If only all roads could appear to him so clearly. If only he knew which ones would lead him home in the end. But for now, Dean doesn't dwell on those thoughts.

He just hobbles along next to Sam, leaning forwards a bit, pulled by that invisible thread.

* * *

 **Not quite a cliffhanger this week...I can't decide if that's good or bad haha. See you next week.**


	12. Chapter 12

They barely speak aside from a few 'are you okays?' from Sam and several pained snorts and aggravated grunts from Dean until the weapons bag appears on the path in front of them, half-zippered but looking no worse for wear. The brothers freeze, casting each other disbelieving looks before staring back down at the impossibility of the object in front of them.

"Sam…?" The name is a question on Dean's lips, but Sam doesn't have an answer.

"Gift horse?" Sam says eventually. Dean shrugs before taking a lilting step towards the duffle, bending slowly to examine it more closely. Sam tenses behind him, all the while realizing how ridiculous it is to be afraid of an inanimate object.

Then again, getting smacked clean across the face by a toaster thrown by a furious poltergeist tended to change that perspective a bit.

After a moment of careful scrutinization, Dean makes the executive decision to pick up the bag. It seems they both hold their breath without meaning to, just for one infinitesimal second. Because nothing ever goes this right for them, and they rarely find the things they've lost without paying for it later.

But nothing happens, except that Sam reaches for the strap, taking it before it fully rests on Dean's shoulders and sliding it across his own, even as Dean sends him a narrowed glare of protest.

"Dude, you're hurt. Let me carry it," Sam says, adjusting the bag easily over his shoulder. Taking the extra weight off of Dean turns out to be a moot point, because it isn't ten minutes later that they find Sam's backpack blocking the way in front of them, just waiting to be found.

And it makes no sense.

Because the paths they took had to have been different, the directions they went so opposite, that there's no way they could stumble across both of the things they'd left behind. One, maybe. But both? Impossible. But here they both are, somehow overlapping on this nonexistent path that seems to be leading them home and Dean doesn't know whether to be thrilled or terrified because _this does not happen to them_.

Still, there isn't as much hesitation this time when Dean bends to pick up the backpack, pulling it over his shoulders. Sam grimaces a little, makes a move like he's going to try to snatch the second bag too, but this time Dean's glare does manage to stop him. And they're walking again, pulled along by nothing that makes practical sense.

Nothing more than a feeling.

Everything seems lighter now. The sun in the sky filters down through the trees, illuminating patches of dust that spiral around their heads and twirl at their feet. The leaves of the trees are all soft edges, no longer the threatening, imposing shapes that had swiped Dean's legs out from under him and buried him alive. Even so, Dean casts nervous glances up at them as they walk, waiting for the illusion to be shattered. Waiting to be pulled back under.

"What if Lucifer is doing this?" he asks suddenly, adjusting the straps of Sam's backpack. He doesn't stop walking though.

"It doesn't feel like him," Sam answers, wondering how he's so sure. Wondering how they aren't dead.

"Okay." Is all Dean says in return. And Sam is about to ask what happened to the Dean Winchester who fights every battle, who wouldn't let such a stupid explanation go just like that, but suddenly there is a girl standing beside them, rubbing furiously at her eyes as if awakening from a long dream. Dean grunts a little as he pivots on his bad leg to face her head on, half-reaching for his gun. Sam stops him with a hand on his shoulder, a shake of his head.

"Dean," he says, bewildered. "It's Melanie."

Melanie Simms, latest victim of The Thing That Lives in the Woods, presumed dead, blinks at them in confusion.

"Hi," is all she says.

They find the rest of them along the way.

Every victim returned without a scratch, blinking in the center of their path. It is as if they are walking through a dream, five should-be-dead people floating along beside them with wide eyes, expressions that say they have just as many answers as the two hunters who have stumbled upon them. Sam thinks maybe they should be used to this kind of thing, walking with ghosts. But it's different this time, and Sam thinks that's a good thing.

No one speaks much. The victims simply latch themselves onto the group of unlikely nomads, falling in line and letting the invisible string around their hearts lead them the rest of the way.

And suddenly, after what could've been an eternity or simply an immeasurable moment of dreaming, sunlight cuts across Sam's eyes, reflected in the shape of a headlight. And they must be imagining it, just as they must be imagining everything else that's happened out here in this forest, but there it is nonetheless, the same illusion for all of them: the Impala.

Dean huffs out this breath that almost sounds like half a sob, but Sam would never call him on it. Not now. Not after the night they've had...or has it been longer? Once Dean catches sight of the car, his uneven stride quickens, forcing Sam and the rest of the group to stay his pace. Sam and Dean both half-collapse against the car when they reach it, Dean slapping his hands lovingly against her hood, letting himself sink into her frame.

"How?" he asks again, and Sam's answer is as unsatisfying as before.

"I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know."

"Do you think it's over?" Dean asks. He doesn't move from where he's flopped against the hood of his Baby, cheek pressed to the cool metal. He doesn't even seem to register the five extra people now in their midst, hovering around the Impala like a crowd of admirers.

"It doesn't make sense," Sam says, straightening up from his own slump against the car. He doesn't want to get too comfortable, or he knows he won't ever want to move again. "We didn't kill anything. We didn't...but it still feels over. It feels like whatever was here is just...gone. Led us out and then just...left."

"Hey uh...guys?" one of the victims steps forward, voice shaking a little. _Bradley Adams_ , Dean's mind supplies. He remembers every name, every picture. The people who weren't supposed to come home. Bradley had been gone the longest- a total of seven days out in the woods. There's no way he should be here right now, standing beside the other four impossibilities without a scratch on him, not a hint of dehydration or starvation evident in his posture. "Is this real?" he asks.

Five pairs of wide eyes stare at the brothers expectantly, waiting for their worlds to come crashing down or to be restarted with a single jolt of knowledge: that they made it. That somehow, they're still here.

"Yes," Sam says with conviction, though Dean watches his eyes flick down to his fingers, counting all ten. "This is real."

Bradley closes his eyes. "How?" he asks.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Dean says, finally straightening up against the car alongside his brother. "You've been missing for a week. All of you have been missing for at least a few days out here. Do you remember anything?"

All five strangers shake their heads.

"Dean," Sam interrupts, reaching over to nudge his brother towards the passenger seat. "Let's figure all this out later. Let's just go. Let's get everyone home." He slides the backpack from Dean's shoulders, eliciting a small groan from his brother, and watches as Dean limps pliantly to the side of the car he rarely frequents unless unconscious. He folds himself awkwardly into the familiar seat and melts into it a little, lets out a long breath. Sam motions to the group of strangers.

"Find a seat," he says. "It's gonna be a tight squeeze."

Dean watches from the rearview mirror as Sam shoves both the weapons bag and the backpack unceremoniously into the trunk. He feels it when Melanie climbs into the front seat beside him, nudging him gently until he shifts enough to make room for her. The remaining four people: _Alex, Bradley, Anika, and Riley_ \- Dean's mind ticks them off one by one- slide into the backseat, squeezed too close together in ways that strangers don't usually touch. No one seems upset. No one seems uncomfortable from lack of space. Their faces are peaceful, expressions as dream-like and disbelieving as the woods they'd just escaped from.

Perhaps the answers will come later, but for now, everyone is simply glad to be alive.

Sam slides in behind the wheel, starts the engine.

Dean knows he drifts, feels himself slouch against the window, feels his eyes flutter. He tries to stay awake, and he mostly succeeds, floating a little bit. They leave all five victims at the hospital, barely staying long enough to hear their somewhat hesitant words of gratification. Once the shock wears off, they will have endless questions. By the time that happens, Sam and Dean will be far away.

As it is, they pull back into the motel parking lot.

The walk to the room might as well be another trek through the woods, but when Dean tries to make a joke to that effect, he only gets an exhausted eye-roll from his brother, who is currently supporting more of his weight than Dean is apt to admit.

All things considered, the damage is less than expected.

Bruises, scrapes, a few deeper cuts that neither of them wants to admit might need stitches (but either way, it can wait til morning, right Sammy?), and one spectacularly rolled ankle. Sam catalogues and treats what he can while Dean sits on the bed, blinking owlishly and trying not to think about the fact that all their guns are still fully loaded; flamethrowers untouched; knives clean and bloodless. It's not that Dean necessarily craves violence. He doesn't need it the way he always used to think he did. But he understands that in their line of work, a job well done is synonymous with a used weapon, a downed body, and the faint hint of smoke wafting up in the rearview. The fact that none of those things happened tonight makes it impossible for his body to relax, even though part of him knows it might really be over.

"Okay Dean," Sam says, patting his brother's leg and closing up the first-aid kit. "Get some rest."

"Wait. Keep that open," Dean says, gesturing to the kit. "You next."

Sam has the audacity to look surprised.

Dean tries not to, but he remembers Hell. Remembers thinking that after he returned, nothing really seemed to go quite as deep as it had in the Pit. Cuts spewing blood, bones cracking apart, skin bruised to high hell, and it was never any cause for concern when he returned. It just didn't feel the same, and sometimes he'd be concussed into thinking that it would all restart the next day anyway, so what was the point in treating it? Dean doesn't know Sam's Hell, but he knows his own, and he knows there's a permanent scar on his right bicep from a swipe of claws he'd never told Sam about, an infection Sam never caught wind of that happened just a few weeks after Dean had gotten back from Hell. And he knows things are different, that _they_ are different now. He knows that Sam will always be in the bed next to his when he wakes up, knows that Sam trusts him and that he trusts Sam.

But the point is that Sam could be hurt, and he might not even realize it.

"I'm fine," Sam insists, the Winchester knee-jerk reaction.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Sit down."

Sam sits, and then seems to wilt before Dean's eyes, the last of his energy sapped straight from the root, petals curling inward. Dean checks him over, relieved to find that there's nothing seriously wrong. Scrapes and cuts and bruises of course- like brother, like brother- but nothing that needs immediate attention. It is exhaustion, pure and simple, and Dean almost grins at the simplicity of that.

Door salted, lock tethered and lights off, they finally collapse into their respective beds, looking to let the last several hours slip quietly behind them into the night.

"How long were we out there, Dean?" Sam asks after a while, knowing by his brother's breathing that Dean is still awake. "How many days?"

"Doesn't matter," comes Dean's sleepy reply, muffled beneath his pillow. "We found our way home."

Sam thinks he's drifted off, but Dean speaks again after a long pause, turning his head so he can be heard more clearly.

"Sam?" he says. "I'm glad you brought that damn machete."

Sam snorts, rolls over. He doesn't have to say 'you're welcome.'


	13. Chapter 13

Bethany doesn't look particularly upset to see them again, and Sam figures that must be a good sign. They meet her for lunch in the cafeteria this time, watching as she collects whatever kind of mystery meat the hospital is serving before following her to an empty table. Dr. Thomson follows after them but keeps his distance, standing off to the side. Sam and Dean sit down across from Bethany, watching curiously as she avoids eye contact and digs into her meal with more enthusiasm than should be possible given the texture of the food in front of her. Finally, she tilts her head, catching Dean's eye for a moment. She smiles.

"Hi again Bethany," Dean says, folding his hands on the table in front of him.

"Hi Dean."

A pause. More silence while Bethany turns her attention to her carton of milk next, fumbling a little with the tabs on either side before she manages to pull it open and take a long swig.

"Bethany, we just uh...we had a question for you," Sam says after a moment.

Bethany nods. "Yes," she says.

Sam purses his lips, trying to think of how best to phrase this particular question. "Last night we...Dean and I...we went into the woods. And we…"

Bethany's plastic fork dangles limply from her hand. She raises her head all the way this time, stares right at Sam.

"Yes," she says again. "The answer to your question is 'yes.'"

Dean blinks at her. "But you don't even know…"

"You're wondering if it's gone," Bethany says without pause. "And it is. I'm not sure how I know. I'm not sure how I know a lot of the things, but I'm sure of this one thing at least: whatever was in those woods, it's gone now."

"You don't know what it was?" Sam asks.

Bethany shakes her head, guides a forkful of brown mush up to her mouth. "I don't think there is a name for it yet, but if there is, I don't want to know it," she says once she's swallowed the bite.

"But you must know something," Sam urges. "Please, Bethany. Anything you can tell us. Anything that can help us kill it. Find it, at least."

"I don't know much. Things like that, they just _are_. It finds a place, and it sucks the life from it. Slowly. So slow that nobody even realizes. Nobody's even looking." Bethany's lets her fork drop onto her half-finished meal with a dull thunk. Her eyes are far away as she speaks, focused on some distant space behind the brother's heads. "Dark things are drawn there," she continues. "Demons and Devils and monsters. Like a beacon. It's how I got possessed, right after I spent the night in those woods."

Dean nods, and Sam seems as though he's going to ask another question, but Bethany speaks first.

"That demon, the one who possessed me? He showed me the future. He showed me Lucifer. A world that couldn't be saved. But he was wrong." Bethany pauses to take another sip of milk. A droplet of white dribbles down her chin and she flicks at it, but it stays, sticks to a curled end of her hair. Dean aches to brush it away.

"I think that's what gave me the strength to break free all those times," Bethany continues. "The knowledge that he _had_ to be wrong about the two of you. I saw, even in those brief flashes, that the two of you were special. That you wouldn't follow so blindly."

Sam winces in never-forgotten shame, and Dean knows he's thinking about Ruby and demon blood and a million other things that hover inside the walls of who they've become, things they don't talk about anymore. Dean knows, because he's thinking about them too: a muttered lie about grabbing bandages from the Impala's trunk, the crackle of gravel beneath the tires as he'd torn away from his brother in the direction of an archangel.

And screw their stupid list of unspoken rules carved out between them just as clearly as Bethany's. Screw it all, because the list is too long and there's too much that doesn't get said, too much they might never get a chance to forgive each other for if they don't start now. And Dean knows he's already forgiven Sam a million times over, but they've never _said_ it, and maybe that matters too. Maybe that matters most.

"You broke free from the demon's control?" Sam asks, wide-eyed.

"Moments at a time," Bethany nods, smiling in faint victory. "Just long enough to spout out what sounded like crazy talk about the end of the world. Just long enough to land me in here, I suppose. Eventually the demon got angry. It left before I even realized it was gone. Left me here to rot."

"Bethany, you're not rotting," Sam says. It almost sounds like one of Dad's orders. "You're surviving."

The young girl shrugs, stirring absently around what's left of her meal. "The same can be said for you, I think. For all of us. The victims- did they find their way home, too?"

Dean nods. "They're safe. They're all safe."

Bethany's face falls a little. "You have to leave now, right? Just like the thing in the woods. Your purpose has been served, so you move on?"

"Yeah, I guess," says Dean. He swipes a hand down along his jaw, squints a little. "That thing in the woods," he says, "what purpose did it serve?"

Bethany shrugs. "It needed proof. Proof that someone could beat it."

"We beat it?" Sam asks, disbelieving.

Bethany nods. She pushes her tray aside. All that's left is a thick, brown paste and a few grains of white rice.

"How?" Dean wonders aloud. "We didn't kill anything. Hell, we don't even know if we _saw_ anything. Anything that was real anyway."

"You followed the rules," Bethany states simply.

"The…" Sam tries.

But Bethany cuts him off, raises a finger into the air. "Say your name aloud before you enter the woods. Let it rattle around inside your head, and do well to remember it, lest the forest try to make you forget." She pauses. "Do you know your names?"

Sam's forehead scrunches. "Well yeah, but…"

"Those are the rules, but they are perhaps not what you believe them to be," says Bethany. "Yes, you said your names before you went into the woods, but more important: you did not forget who you were. For that is what the forest does. Did. It strips away all the things that you are, makes you lose track of what's important. The voices you follow into sorrow? They are your own. The trees you mar with your ugly knives? It is your own skin. The ten fingers you count and recount? This is your reality, the hard truth of your existence. Do you understand now? It all means something more."

"Not really," says Dean, at the same time Sam says:

"But...we didn't find our way home. The woods themselves, they led us back somehow."

Bethany clasps her hands in front of her, tilts her head like she's a bird listening for the sounds of a predator carried across the wind. "And what is your home? You think it's a place?"

"Well yeah, it's always been the car," Sam says without pause, and he feels Dean relax against him a little, as if that answer pleases him. But it doesn't seem to have the same effect on Bethany, because she's shaking her head at them, a soft smile on her face.

"It has never been the car."

"I don't understand," Sam insists.

"Yes you do," Bethany replies, a little impatient now. She cups her hands in front of her, then spreads them apart until she encompasses both of them within the reach of her arms. "It's you. You're only really home when you're with each other. And the moment you found your way back to each other, that was the moment it was truly over."

Bethany stands then, closing out the conversation with a swift nod of her head.

"Well," she shrugs, as if that says it all.

"Well," Dean echoes. He reaches out a hand to her, waits until she takes it. Gives it one, firm shake. Dr. Thomson watches from across the room. Bethany slips the object Dean hands her deftly into her pocket without looking at it. She brushes her fingers against it, eyebrows raised with an unspoken question.

"Anti-possession charm," Dean mutters by way of explanation. "To keep you safe."

Bethany's jaw clenches and her lip quivers the slightest amount, moisture pooling behind her eyes. "Thank you," she says. Dean nods.

"You're gonna be okay, Bethany. You're gonna be just fine."

Bethany directs a watery smile back at him. "Sure."

"Bethany, if you ever need anything…" Sam starts.

"I know," Bethany nods. "I know."

Dean looks like he wants to say more, _do_ more, but Sam nudges his shoulder a little, gets him moving. They don't say much as they move down the blank-white walls of the hospital and out into the clear air. They make their way towards the Impala and when Sam moves for the driver's side, Dean doesn't stop him, left ankle still shot to hell and needing a reprieve. The engine rumbles to life and the road stretches out in front of them, waiting for them to pick a direction. Dean lets Sam choose this time, lets himself relax into the seat a bit. He's about to turn on the radio when Sam does that stuttered thing where he almost starts to talk, and then stops.

"What?" Dean asks after the third time he's done it.

"What?" Sam echoes.

"I know you have something to say, so just say it."

Sam's grip on the wheel is loose and sure, eyes trained ahead. "I just...I don't know. It's a lot to think about. Whatever was in those woods...we'll probably never understand it. And what if we run into it again? What if people die next time because we don't know enough? It's just...it bothers me. That doesn't bother you?"

Dean wrinkles his nose, thinks about it for a second. "Of course it bothers me," he says finally. "I don't like not knowing just as much as you. But maybe we don't need to know everything. We just need to know how to kill it or send it back to wherever the hell it came from. We beat it this time, right? So we just do it again." A pause and a smirk. "With the power of love, of course."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Dean, be serious."

"I'm sorry, it's just a little corny for my taste. I mean, 'we're not home unless we're together?'" Dean's fingers come up to form air quotes, the sarcasm evident. Sam frowns, changes lanes.

"You don't think that's true?"

"Of course it's true," Dean growls, and Sam feels his chest tighten and loosen, something like relief. Something like sanctuary. "But why'd she have to say it out loud like that? It's just...it's one of those unspoken rules, you know? The sky is blue, the grass is green unless you're in Louisiana in the middle of August, and we've always been better together."

"Is that supposed to be a _less_ corny way of saying it?" Sam teases, the corners of his eyes creased with a smile. He tosses a glance at Dean, watches the way his brother squirms beneath the admission of anything resembling sentimentality, and he feels a warmth in his chest that's been missing for a long time. Maybe for a hundred unremembered years.

"Oh whatever Sam, you know what I mean."

"Yeah," Sam grins, eyes still on his brother. "Yeah, I do."

Because there are rules, you know. Things you must remember if you want to survive in this world. The Winchesters have always known these rules better than most, and one thing has always rung true:

The world is a nasty place, and there are things even uglier than monsters that slink along its corners and infect its inhabitants. But it is all survivable. Every last speck of awfulness is surmountable. You just need someone next to you who can pull you from the depths of it.

You just need your brother.

* * *

 **A/N: So this was the final chapter. I know a few of you were wondering when the other shoe was going to drop, but I figured maybe the boys deserved to have something actually go right for them for once. And of course, there are still some unanswered questions here as to the nature of this evil they faced, but I kinda like it that way.**

 **The Devil's Tramping Ground is a real place in the pinewoods of Chatham County, North Carolina.** **I'm hoping the same cannot be said for literally any other element of this story. Though it would be nice to know we've got a couple Winchesters out there defending us from monsters, I suppose.**

 **Anyway, hope you all enjoyed. Thank you so much for your continued support and comments- they really do mean a lot to me.**

 **Also, a special thank you to gr8read for all of the recent, wonderful reviews!**


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